1

Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church

by John L Girardeau

Professor in Columbia Theological Seminary South Carolina

RICHMOND VA Whittet and Shepperson Printers 1001 Main Street

1888

2

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE QUESTION STATED

I GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE

II ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

III ARGUMENT FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT

IV ARGUMENT FROM THE PRESBYTERIAN STANDARDS

V HISTORICAL ARGUMENT

VI ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC CONSIDERED

VII CONCLUDING REMARKS

3

PREFACE

The following treatise owes its origin to a desire expressed by members of the last Senior Class in Columbia Theological Seminary to hear a discussion of the question whether instrumental music may be legitimately used in the public worship of the Church Possessed of deep convictions on that subject the writer could not refuse compliance with such a request and accordingly delivered a course of lectures to the class A dear Christian friend who heard one of these lectures preached as a sermon suggested the propriety of their being published and being aware that the writer was not encumbered with a superfluity of this worldrsquos goods generously tendered the means to render the suggestion practical Although cautioned that she might make a useless pecuniary sacrifice as the current of the Churchrsquos views is now set in a direction opposed to the doctrine of the treatise she insisted upon executing her intention on the ground that she would contribute to erect a testimony to the truth Hence the appearance of this little book before the public

It will no doubt be said that the attempt to prove the unjustifiable employment of instrumental music in the public worship of the Church is schismatical since the practice is now well-nigh universal that it is trivial inasmuch as it concerns a mere circumstantial in the services of religion and that it is useless as the tendency which is resisted is invincible and is destined to triumph throughout Protestant Christendom To all this one answer alone is offered and it is sufficient namely that the attempt is grounded in truth It involves a contest for a mighty and all-comprehending principle by opposing one of the special forms in which it is now commonly transcended and violated It is that principle emphasized in the following remarks as scriptural and regulative that lends importance to the discussion and redeems it from the reproach of being narrow and trifling

The argument is commended to the consideration of any of Godrsquos people into whose hands it may fall but it is especially addressed to Presbyterians to whose venerable standards as well as directly to the Scriptures the appeal for proof is taken They are entreated to read it and to render judgment according to the evidence submitted May that Almighty Spirit whose illumination our divine Lord and Saviour promised to his followers guide each reader to the truth

COLUMBIA SC

4

THE QUESTION STATED

In the discussion of the question Whether the use of instrumental music in the worship of the church is permissible or not it must be premised

First that the question is not in regard to private or family worship or to that of social gatherings which are not ecclesiastical in their nature nor with reference to the utility or tastefulness of instrumental music nor in relation to the abuse to which it may be liable but

Secondly the question is precisely Is the use of instrumental music in the public worship of the church justifiable The design of this discussion is with the help of the divine Spirit to prove the negative

5

I

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE

Attention at the outset is invoked to the considerations which serve to establish the following controlling principle A divine warrant is necessary for every element of doctrine government and worship in the church that is whatsoever in these spheres is not commanded in the Scriptures either expressly or by good and necessary consequence from their statements is forbidden

1 This principle is deducible by logical inference from the great truthmdashconfessed by Protestantsmdashthat the Scriptures are an infallible rule of faith and practice and therefore supreme perfect and sufficient for all the needs of the Church All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works This truth operates positively to the inclusion of everything in the doctrine government and worship of the church which is commanded explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and negatively to the exclusion of everything which is not so commanded

2 This principle of the necessity of a divine warrant for everything in the faith and practice of the church is proved by didactic statements of Scripture

Num 1539 40 Remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes after which ye use to go a whoring that ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your God Ex 2540 And look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount Heb 85 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle for See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount Deut 42 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish aught from it that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you Deut 1232 What thing soever I command you observe to do it thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it Prov 305 6 Every word of God is pure he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him Add thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar Isa 820 To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Dan 244 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people Matt 156 Thus have

6

ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition Matt 2819 20 Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Col 220-23 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances (touch not taste not handle not which are all to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh 2 Tim 316 17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works Rev 2218 19 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and out of the things which are written in this book

These solemn statements and awful warnings teach us the lesson that to introduce any devices and inventions of our own into the doctrine government or worship of the church is to add to the words of God and to fail in maintaining the principles and truths or in complying with the institutions and ordinances delivered to us in the Scriptures is to take away from the words of God The Romanists for example who hold the doctrine of transubstantiation and observe the sacrifice of the mass add to Godrsquos words and the Quakers who maintain the co-ordinate authority of immediate revelations of new original truth with the inspired Oracles and neglect the observance of the sacraments both add to and take away from them And in like manner those who import instrumental music into the ordained worship of the New Testament Church transcend the warrant of Scripture and add to the words which Christ our Lord has commanded

3 There are concrete instances recorded in the Scriptures which graphically illustrate the same great principle

(1) Gen 4 Cain and his offering The brothers Cain and Abel had been in childhood beyond all doubt instructed by their parents in the knowledge of the first promise of redemption to be accomplished by atonement They had we have every reason to believe often seen their father offering animal sacrifices in the worship of God To this mode of worship they had been accustomed Cain the type of rationalists and fabricators of rites and ceremonies in the house of the Lord consulted his own wisdom and taste and ventured to offer in Godrsquos worship the fruit of the groundmdashan un-bloody sacrifice while Abel conforming to the appointments and prescribed usages in which he had been trained expressed his faith and obedience by offering a

7

lamb Abelrsquos worship was accepted and Cainrsquos rejected And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect Thus in the immediate family of Adam we behold a signal and typical instance of self-assertion and disregard of divine prescriptions in the matter of worship This was swiftly followed by Godrsquos disapprobation and then came the development of sin in the atrocious crime of fratricide and the banishment of the murderer from the communion of his family and the presence of his God

(2) Lev 101-3 Nadab and Abihu And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not1 And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Then Moses said unto Aaron This is it that the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified And Aaron held his peace These young men as the sons of Israelrsquos high priest were legitimately employed in discharging the appointed functions of the sacerdotal office But they presumed to add to Godrsquos commandments Exercising their own will in regard to the mode of his worship they did that which he did not command them and they were instantly killed for their wicked temerity

(3) Num 16 Korah Dathan and Abiram God had consecrated those descendants of Levi who sprang from Aaron to the priesthood while the remaining descendants of Levi were set apart to other offices pertaining to the service of the tabernacle Korah was a Levite but not a son of Aaron Dathan and Abiram were not even Levites but appear to have descended from Reuben When therefore these men asserting the claim that the whole congregation were entitled to rank with Moses and Aaron ventured to assume to themselves functions which God had restricted to a certain class they were overtaken by the swift indignation of Jehovah and perished in an awful manner The ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods They and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the congregation

(4) Num 20 Moses smiting the rock at Kadesh When on a previous occasion the Israelites were suffering from thirst God commanded Moses to smite the rock at Horeb This he did and water gushed forth abundantly The apostle Paul tells us that that rock typified Christ The typical teaching furnished by Moses then was that from the one death of Christ under the smiting of the law the grace of the Holy Ghost should proceed to satisfy the thirst of the soul

1 That is which he did not command them

8

Christ was to be smitten unto death only once Now again at Kadesh the Israelites suffer for want of water God commands Moses to speak unto the rock To this explicit command he rashly ventured to add He spoke to the people instead of the rock and he smote the rock and smote it twice He used his own judgment asserted his own will and taught the people falsely For this sin he and Aaron who concurred with him in its commission were excluded from entrance into the promised land And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother and speak ye to the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth his water and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock and he said unto them Hear now ye rebels must we fetch you water out of this rock And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them

We have here an inexpressibly affecting instance of the sin and folly of adding human inventions to the ordinances of Godrsquos appointment of the dreadful results that may follow from what men may conceive slight departures from obedience to the commands of God Not to speak of Aaron the accomplished orator the venerable saint the first anointed high priest of his people this incomparable man Moses in whom were blended all natural gifts and supernatural graces the deliverer the legislator the historian the poet the judge and the commander of Israel after having brought them out of Egypt conducted them through the parted waters of the Red Sea mediated between them and God amidst the terrors of Sinai led them through the horrors of the waste and howling desertmdashthis glorious man now in sight of the Jordan which like a thread separated them from the long-sought long-coveted goal of their hearts is doomed for one addition to Godrsquos command which no doubt seemed to him but a slight deviation from his instructions to die short of the promised land

(5) I Sam 13 Saul offering a burnt-offering at Gilgal The king had no command to officiate as priest Saul added to Godrsquos command and performed a function for which he had no authority The circumstances seemed to him to justify the act But he gained the divine disapprobation and lost his kingdom for the blunder As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling And he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him And Saul said Bring hither a burnt-offering to me and peace-offerings And he offered the burnt-offering And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-

9

offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him And Samuel said What hast thou done And Saul said Because I saw that the people were scattered from me and that thou camest not within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash therefore said I The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal and I have not made supplication unto the Lord I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt-offering And Samuel said to Saul Thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee

(6) I Chron 137 8 1511-15 Uzza and the ark and Davidrsquos subsequent obedience The Levites or more particularly the Kohathites were expressly commanded to bear the ark The manner of bearing it was also commanded Rings were appended through which staves were run These poles covered with gold were to be supported on the shoulders of the bearers They were forbidden to touch the ark upon pain of death After that the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die Such was Godrsquos command In transporting it from the house of Abinadab David infringed the divine command by directing the ark to be borne on a cart drawn by oxen Then when the animals stumbled Uzza with the intention of saving the ark from falling touched it with his hand He was instantly killed for his pious disobedience And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart And David and all Israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumbled And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God The offence was the more inexcusable because the staves were never detached from the ark and it is not at all likely that the Philistines who had been subjected to so severe a treatment while they had it in their possession had ventured to steal them And it deserves consideration that those heathen had not been killed for handling the ark while for doing the same thing Godrsquos people who should have known better were taught an awful lesson

The magnificent demonstration suffered a disastrous arrest and the king of Israel sobered by the warning he had received returned home to do what he ought to have done beforemdashto study the law of God Having accomplished this neglected office he makes a second attempt to remove the sacred symbol of Godrsquos covenant to Jerusalem but in a different fashion from the

10

former Let us hear the record And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests and for the Levites for Uriel Asaiah and Joel Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab and said unto them Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it For because ye did it not at the first the Lord our God made a breach upon us for that we sought him not after the due order So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel And the children of the Levites bare the ark upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord It merits notice that when the ark was to be removed and instated in its place in the temple which was about to be dedicated Solomon caused the due order to be observed And all the elders of Israel came and the Levites took up the ark And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the congregation and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle these did the priests and the Levites bring up And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place2 The history of this matter enforces the impressive lesson that we are not at liberty to use our own judgment and to act without a divine warrant in regard to things of Godrsquos appointment

(7) 2 Chron 2616-21 King Uzziah officiating as a priest God had given no warrant to a king to act as priest and Uzziah arrogantly undertook without such warrant to discharge sacerdotal functions The consequences of his impiety are vividly depicted in the following record But when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him fourscore priests of the Lord that were valiant men and they withstood Uzziah the king and said unto him It appertaineth not unto thee Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for thou hast trespassed neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God Then Uzziah was wroth and had a censer in his hand to burn incense and while he was wroth with the priests the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked upon him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence yea himself hasted also to go out because the Lord had smitten him And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death and dwelt in a several house being a leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord

(8) 2 Chron 283-5 King Ahaz doubly offending as to function and place He performed priestly functions without a divine warrant and performed them in places which God had not appointed For this wicked self-assertion he was visited with divine vengeance Moreover he

2 2 Chron 5457

11

burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of them captives and brought them to Damascus And he was also delivered into the hands of the king of Israel who smote him with a great slaughter

(9) The jealousy of God for the principle of a divine warrant for everything in his worship is most conspicuously illustrated in New Testament times by the tremendous judgments which befell the Jewish people for perpetuating without such a warrant the typical ritual of the temple-service Until the great atoning sacrifice was offered they had a positive warrant from God for the observance of that order But when that sacrifice had been offered the veil of the temple had been rent in twain and the Holy Ghost had been copiously poured out at the inauguration of a new dispensation the positive warrant for the temple-worship was withdrawn This Stephen insisted on before the Council and the illustrious witness for Christ was murdered for his testimony He charged that when their fathers had no warrant to worship sacrificially except at the temple they had persisted in observing that worship elsewhere and now that God had withdrawn the warrant to worship at the temple they demanded the right to worship there Ye do always said the glorious servant of Jesus resist the Holy Ghost For this sin by which they endorsed their rejection of their Messiah and Saviour their church-state and national polity were demolished and they after the experience of an unparalleled tribulation were scattered to the four winds of heaven Have we not the evidence before us at this day

The mighty principle has thus been established by an appeal to the didactic statements of Godrsquos word and to special instances recorded in scriptural history that a divine warrant is required for everything in the faith and practice of the Church that whatsoever is not in the Scriptures commanded either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence is forbidden The special application of this principle to the worship of God as illustrated in the concrete examples which have been furnished cannot escape the least attentive observation God is seen manifesting a most vehement jealousy in protecting the purity of his worship Any attempt to assert the judgment the will the taste of man apart from the express warrant of his Word and to introduce into his worship human inventions devices and methods was overtaken by immediate retribution and rebuked by the thunderbolts of his wrath Nor need we wonder at this for the service which the creature professes to render to God reaches its highest and most formal expression in the worship which is offered him In this act the majesty of the Most High is directly confronted The worshipper presents himself face to face with the infinite Sovereign

12

of heaven and earth and assumes to lay at his feet the sincerest homage of the heart In the performance of such an act to violate divine appointments or transcend divine prescription to affirm the reason of a sinful creature against the wisdom the will of a sinful creature against the authority of God is deliberately to flaunt an insult in his face and to hurl an indignity against his throne What else could follow but the flash of divine indignation It is true that in the New Testament dispensation the same swift and visible arrest of this sin is not the ordinary rule But the patience and forbearance of God can constitute no justification of its commission Its punishment if it be not repented of is only deferred Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil while the delayed justice of God is gathering to itself indignation to burst forth like an overwhelming tempest in the dreadful day of wrath

The principle that has been emphasized is in direct opposition to that maintained by Romanists and Prelatists and I regret to say by lax Presbyterians that what is not forbidden in the Scriptures is permitted The Church of England in her twentieth article concedes to the church a power to decree rites and ceremonies with this limitation alone upon its exercise that it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to Godrsquos written word3 The principle of the discretionary power of the church in regard to things not commanded by Christ in his Word was the chief fountain from which flowed the gradually increasing tide of corruptions that swept the Latin church into apostasy from the gospel of Godrsquos grace And as surely as causes produce their appropriate effects and history repeats itself in obedience to that law any Protestant church which embodies that principle in its creed is destined sooner or later to experience a similar fate The same too may be affirmed of a church which formally rejects it and practically conforms to it The reason is plain The only bridle that checks the degenerating tendency of the churchmdasha tendency manifested in all agesmdashis the Word of God for the Spirit of grace Himself ordinarily operates only in connection with that Word If this

3 Some curious and remarkable statements have been made with reference to this article When in 1808 the question of the introduction of instrumental music into public worship was before the Presbytery of Glasgow the Rev Dr Begg father of the late Dr James Begg published a treatise on the Use of Organs in which the following statement is attributed to the Rev Alexander Hislop The Church of England has admitted into its articles this principle that it belongs to lsquothe churchrsquo of her own authority to lsquodecree rites and ceremoniesrsquo (Article 20 ) As a matter of historical fact this principle was never agreed to by the Convocation that adopted the Thirty-nine Articles this sentence being found neither in the first printed edition of the articles nor in the draft of them that passed the Convocation and which is still in existence with the autograph signatures of the members but it is believed to have been surreptitiously inserted by the hand of Queen Elizabeth herself who had much of the over-bearing spirit of her father Henry VIII and who as head of the church which the English constitution made her was determined to have a pompous worship under her ecclesiastical control In support of this statement reference is made to authorities in Presbyterian Review July 1843 The Use of Organs etc by James Begg DD (p 150) See also Bannermanrsquos Church of Christ Vol I p 339

13

restraint be discarded the downward lapse is sure The words of the great theologian John Owenmdashand the British Isles have produced no greatermdashare solemn and deserve to be seriously pondered The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God either as to matter or manner beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry of all the confusion blood persecution and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world

In view of such considerations as these confirmed as they are by the facts of all past history it is easy to see how irrelevant and baseless is the taunt flung by high churchmen ritualists and latitudinarians of every stripe against the maintainers of the opposite principle that they are narrow-minded bigots who take delight in insisting upon trivial details The truth is exactly the other way The principle upon which this cheap ridicule is cast is simple broad majestic It affirms only the things that God has commanded the institutions and ordinances that he has prescribed and besides this discharges only a negative office which sweeps away every trifling invention of manrsquos meretricious fancy It is not the supporters of this principle but their opponents who delight in insisting upon crossings genuflexions and bowings to the east upon vestments altars and candles upon organs and cornets and the dear antiphonies that so bewitch their prelates and their chapters with the goodly echo they make in fine upon all that finical trumpery which inherited from the woman clothed in scarlet marks the trend backward to the Rubicon and the seven-hilled mart of souls

But whatever others may think or do Presbyterians cannot forsake this principle without the guilt of defection from their own venerable standards and from the testimonies sealed by the blood of their fathers Among the principles that the Reformers extracted from the rubbish of corruption and held up to light again none were more comprehensive far-reaching and profoundly reforming than this It struck at the root of every false doctrine and practice and demanded the restoration of the true Germany has been infinitely the worse because of Lutherrsquos failure to apply it to the full Calvin enforced it more fully The great French Protestant Church with the exception of retaining a liturgical relic of popery gave it a grand application and France suffered an irreparable loss when she dragooned almost out of existence the body that maintained it John Knox stamped it upon the heart of the Scottish Church and it constituted the glory of the English Puritans Alas that it is pasting into decadence in the Presbyterian churches of England Scotland and America What remains but that those who still see it and cling to it as to something dearer than life itself should continue to utter however feebly however inoperatively their unchanging testimony to its truth It is the acropolis of the churchrsquos liberties the palladium of her purity That gone nothing will be left to hope but to strain its gaze towards the dawn of the millennial day Thenmdashwe are entitled to expectmdasha

14

more thorough-going and glorious reformation will be effected than any that has blessed the church and the world since the magnificent propagation of Christianity by the labors of the inspired apostles themselves

15

II

ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the Jewish dispensation God was pleased to proceed in accordance with the great principle which has been signalized in regard to the introduction of instrumental music into the public worship of his people He kept the ordering of this part of his formal and instituted worship in his own hands There is positive proof that it was never made an element of that worship except by his express command Without his warrant it was excluded only with it was it employed

1 Let us notice the operation of this principle with reference to the tabernacle-worship

Moses received the mode of constructing the tabernacle and the order of its worship by divine revelation See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount It will be admitted that the instructions thus divinely given descended to the most minute detailsmdashthe sort of fabrics and skins to be used and their diverse colors the pins the ouches and the taches the ablutions the vestments and the actions of the officiating priests and Levites the ingredients of the holy ointment and the incense the parts the arrangements the instruments of worshipmdashto everything connected with the tabernacle these specific directions referred Of course if God had intended instrumental music to be employed it would have been included in these particular directions the instruments would have been specified for its performance and regulations enjoined for its use

What now are the facts No directions are given respecting instruments of music Two instruments of sound are provided for but they were of such a character as to make it impracticable to use them ordinarily as accompaniments of the voice in singing The record is And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Make thee two trumpets of silver of a whole piece shalt thou make them that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly and for the journeying of the camps And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you thou shalt blow an alarm with the trumpets and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies Also in the days of your gladness and in your solemn days and in the beginnings of your months ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings that they may be to you for a memorial before your God I am the Lord your God The blowing of these trumpets as a signal for marching or for going to war had certainly nothing to do with worship neither did the call of the congregation to assemble belong to the performance of worship any more than

16

a church bell now the ringing of which ceases when the services begin There is nothing to show that the blowing of the trumpets on festival days and at the beginning of months over the offerings was accompanied by singing on the part of priests and Levites There is no mention of that fact and Jewish tradition opposes the supposition Moreover it is almost certain that the blowing of trumpets on such occasions was a representative act performed by the priests and that consequently it was not accompanied by the singing of the congregation It is true that there is one recorded exception (2 Chron 512 13) which occurred however when the tabernacle had given way to the temple At the dedication of the latter edifice the priests blew the trumpets at the same time that the Levites sang and played upon instruments of music so as to make one sound but it is evident that on that great occasion of rejoicing what was aimed at was not musical harmony but a powerful crash of jubilant sound We are shut up to the conclusion that there was nothing in the tabernacle-worship as ordered by Moses which could be justly characterized as instrumental music

This absence of instrumental music from the services of the tabernacle continued not only during the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert but after their entrance into the promised land throughout the protracted period of the Judges the reign of Saul and a part of Davidrsquos This is a noteworthy fact Although David was a lover of instrumental music and himself a performer upon the harp it was not until some time after his reign had begun that this order of things was changed and as we shall see changed by divine command Let us hear the scriptural record (1 Chron 231-6) So when David was old and full of days he made Solomon his son king over Israel And he gathered together all the princes of Israel with the priests and the Levites Now the Levites were numbered by the age of thirty years and upward and their number by their polls man by man was fifty and eight thousand of which twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and six thousand were officers and judges moreover four thousand were porters and four thousand praised the Lord with the instruments which I made said David to praise therewith And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi namely Gershon Kohath and Merari Now how did David come to make this alteration in the Mosaic order which had been established by divine revelation For the answer let us again consult the sacred record (1 Chron 2811-13 19) Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch and of the houses thereof and of the treasuries thereof and of the inner parlors thereof and of the place of the mercy-seat and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord and of all the chambers round about of the treasuries of the house of God and of the treasuries of the dedicated things also for the courses of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord All this said David the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me and all the works of this pattern 2 Chron 2925 26 And he [Solomon] set the Levites in the house of the Lord

17

with cymbals with psalteries and with harps according to the commandment of David and of Gad the kingrsquos seer and of Nathan the prophet for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets

In the light of these statements of Godrsquos Word several things are made evident which challenge our serious attention First instrumental music never was divinely warranted as an element in the tabernacle-worship until David received inspired instructions to introduce it as preparatory to the transition which was about to be effected to the more elaborate ritual of the temple Secondly when the temple was to be built and its order of worship to be instituted David received a divine revelation in regard to it just as Moses had concerning the tabernacle with its ordinances Thirdly this direct revelation to David was enforced upon Solomon and upon the priests and Levites by inspired communications touching the same subject from the prophets Gad and Nathan Fourthly instrumental music would not have been constituted an element in the temple-worship had not God expressly authorized it by his command The public worship of the tabernacle up to the time when it was to be merged into the temple had been a stranger to it and so great an innovation could have been accomplished only by divine authority Godrsquos positive enactment grounded the propriety of the change

Is it not clear that the great principle that whatsoever is not commanded by God either expressly or impliedly in relation to the public worship of his house is forbidden meets here a conspicuous illustration The bearing of all this upon the Christian church is as striking as it is obvious If under a dispensation dominantly characterized by external appointments instrumental music could not be introduced into the worship of Godrsquos sanctuary except in consequence of a warrant furnished by him how can a church existing under the far simpler and more spiritual dispensation of the gospel venture without such a warrant to incorporate it into its public services and that no such warrant can be pleaded will be made apparent as the argument expands

2 Against the conclusiveness of this argument it is objected that the Israelites were accustomed to use instrumental music at their option and that especially was this the case on occasions of public rejoicing when thanksgivings were by masses of the people rendered to God for signal benefits conferred by his delivering providence So far as the allegation concerns the employment of that kind of music in private or social life it is irrelevant to the scope of an argument which has reference explicitly and solely to its use in the public worship of Godrsquos house This will rule out many of the instances which are cited to prove the untenableness of the principle contended for in this discussion

There remains however another class of cases to which attention may be fairly directed cases in which public worship appeared to be offered Into this class fall the instances of Miriamrsquos

18

playing upon the timbrel at the Red Sea the welcome of Saul and David by the women with singing dancing and instrumental music the like instance of Jephthahrsquos daughter the accompanying of the ark by David and Israel with bands of music and the minstrelsy of the prophets to whom Saul joined himself In reply to the objection based upon these instances the general ground may be taken that they are examples not of church-worship but of public rejoicing on the part of the nation or of communities with the exception of the prophetsrsquo minstrelsy which will be separately considered Some special remarks are however pertinent in regard to them

In the first place it will be noticed from the account of the triumphant rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea that the men sang only Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake saying etc What can be gathered from this simple singing of the males of Israel in praise of God for their great deliverance in favor of instrumental music in worship it is rather difficult to see

In the second place it was Miriam and the women who used instruments of music on the occasion And Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances The argument of the objector proves too much If from this instance the legitimacy of employing instrumental music in the public worship of the Jewish Church is to be inferred so may the legitimacy of its use by women in that worship But the history of the appointments of that worship furnishes no evidence of the tenableness of the latter inference The contrary is proved Women were excluded from any prominent at least any official function in the services of Godrsquos house in the Mosaic dispensation4 It was the males of Israel who were commanded to repair to Jerusalem on those festival occasions when bursts of instrumental music were united with the singing of praise in the temple-worship Indeed so far from the women taking an active part in that worship it would seem to have been limited as to its outward expression in sounds to the priests and Levites who as the divinely appointed official representatives of the congregation sang and played on instruments of music The argument might do for a modern advocate of womanrsquos rights but it will hardly answer for the Jewish dispensation It is as barren of results as was Miriam herself of issue

In the third place it again proves too much if the word rendered dances is correctly translated It would prove that religious dancing was an element in the prescribed worship of Godrsquos people The consequence refutes the argument

4 The daughters of Heman mentioned I Chron 255 were not singers and performers on instruments in the public worship for they are not included in the enumeration of the courses which follows

19

But to return to the general position that the instances mentioned in the objection were those not of ecclesiastical worship but of national rejoicing Against this general view it is urged in reply that an unwarrantable distinction is made between the Jewish church and the Jewish nation This raises the question whether such a distinction is valid Were state and church identical Did the members of the state act as members of the church Did the members of the church act as members of the state It may be admitted that in the mainmdashthat is with certain exceptions such as the proselytes of righteousness for examplemdashthe nation and the church were numerically coincident Ordinarilymdashthat is with certain exceptionsmdashthe rite of circumcision designated one alike a member of the state and of the church But that these two institutes were identical that the functions of the one were the functions of the other considered as organisms is to my mind not susceptible of proof It would be unsuitable here to enter at large into this question but it lies across the track of the argument in hand and a brief consideration of it as it is not illogically interjected will not be regarded as impertinent The question is acutely and ably discussed by that great man George Gillespie in his Aaronrsquos Rod Blossoming I shall give a mere outline the bare heads of a part of his argument to prove that the Jewish state and church although in the main the same materially that is as to personal constituents were organically and formally distinct institutes and I do this the more readily because Gillespiersquos valuable work is now rare and difficult of access They are distinct

(1) In respect of laws The judicial law was given to the state the ceremonial law to the church

(2) In respect of acts The members of the state did not as such worship God and offer sacrifices in the temple etc and the members of the church did not as such inflict physical punishments

(3) In respect of controversies to be decided Some concerned the Lordrsquos matters and were to be ecclesiastically settled some the kingrsquos matters and were to be civilly decided

(4) In respect of officers The priests and Levites were church officers magistrates and judges were state officers

(5) In respect of continuance The Romans took away the Jewish state and civil government but the Jewish church and ecclesiastical government remained

(6) In respect of variation The constitution and government of the Jewish state underwent serious changes under different civil administrations but we cannot say that the church was remodelled as often as the state was

20

(7) In respect of members There were proselytes the proselytes of righteousness who were admitted to membership in the church with its privileges but were not entitled to the privileges of members of the state

(8) In respect of government In the prosecution of this argument to prove the distinctness of the Jewish church and state Gillespie takes the ground that there were two Sanhedrims one civil the other ecclesiastical and he cites as maintaining that view Zepperus Junius Piscator Wolfius Gerhard Godwin Bucerus Walaeus Pelargus Sopingius the Dutch Annotators Bertramus Apollonius Strigelius the professors of Groningen Reynolds Paget LrsquoEmpereur and Elias cited by Buxtorf

[This special argument Gillespie presses elaborately and acutely by more than a dozen separate considerations derived from Scripture But as the question has been ably debated on both sides by men learned in Jewish affairs no positive opinion is here expressed as to the conclusiveness of the proofs presented by the great Scotch divine]

(9) There was an ecclesiastical excommunication among the Jews different from the penalties inflicted by the criminal law of the state

Such are the ribs merely of a powerful argument in favor of the distinction between the Jewish state and church by one who had the reputation of being one of the astutest debaters in the Westminster Assembly of Divines That distinguished scholar Dr Joseph Addison Alexander expresses the opinion in his Primitive Church Offices that the Jewish state and church were one organization with two distinct classes of functions one civil and another ecclesiastical But Gillespie shows that the numerical components of some of the courts were different they consisted of different men Take either view however and the ends of this argument are met more conclusively upon Gillespiersquos it is true but conclusively upon both What the state as such did the church as such did not do and vice versa And if this be so it follows that the same thing holds in regard to the people What they did in a national capacity they did not necessarily do in an ecclesiastical When then Miriam and the women with her the women who welcomed Saul and David returning home in triumph the daughter of Jephthah celebrating her fatherrsquos victory and the mass of people who accompanied the ark in its transportation to Jerusalem played on instruments of music they were commemorating national events with appropriate national rejoicings They were not acting worship as the church or as the members of the church

In regard to the company of prophets whom Saul joined it is sufficient to say that they were in part the poets and minstrels of the nation and that as the incident occurred during the existence of the tabernacle the incontestable proof which has been already exhibited that

21

instrumental music such as that which they employed was not allowed in its worship is enough to sweep all ground from beneath the objection now considered against the operation of the great principle of limitation upon church worship for which I have contended This holds good whether or not the view which has been presented as to these prophets be correct Their playing on instruments had nothing to do with the public formally instituted worship of the house of the Lord

It has thus been shown by a direct appeal to the Scriptures that during all the protracted period in which the tabernacle was Godrsquos sanctuary the great principle was enforced that only what God commands is permitted and what he does not command is forbidden in the public worship of his house Moses with all his wisdom the Judges with all their intrepidity Saul with all his waywardness and self-will David the sweet Psalmist of Israel with all his skill in the musical art did not any of them venture to violate that principle and introduce into the public services of Godrsquos house the devices of their imagination or the inventions of their taste The lesson is certainly impressive coming as it does from that distant age and it behooves those who live in a dispensation this side of the cross of Calvary and the day of Pentecost to show cause beyond a peradventure why they are discharged from the duty of obedience to the divine will in this vitally important matter

3 The next step in this argument is to show that no musical instruments were used in the synagogue-worship

As this is almost universally admitted no extended argument is needed to prove it It might have been expected from the jealousy which God had always peculiarly manifested in enforcing the principle that without an express warrant from him nothing was to be introduced into the public worship of his people and especially from the facts already emphasized that no instruments of music were allowed to be employed in the tabernacle and that they were included in the service at the temple only in consequence of explicit divine instructions to that effect it might have been expected that instrumental music would not have been incorporated into the worship of the Jews on ordinary Sabbath days not embraced in the three national festivals This presumption is confirmed by the facts of the case

The writers who have most carefully investigated Jewish antiquities and have written learnedly and elaborately in regard to the synagogue concur in showing that its worship was destitute of instrumental music What singing there was and there was not much of it in proportion to the other elements of worship was plain and simple In his great work On the Ancient Synagogue

22

Vitringa shows5 that there were only two instruments of sound used in connection with the synagogue and that these were employed not in worship or along with it as an accompaniment but as publishing signalsmdashfirst for proclaiming the new year secondly for announcing the beginning of the Sabbath thirdly for publishing the sentence of excommunication and fourthly for heralding fasts These were their sole uses There were no sacrifices over which they were to be blown as in the tabernacle and temple And from the nature of the instruments it is plain that they could not have accompanied the voice in singing They were only of two kindsmdashtrumpets (tubae) and ramsrsquo horns or cornets (buccinae) The former were straight the latter curved Nor is it to be supposed that the cornet like the modern instrument of that name was susceptible of modulation and therefore of accompanying vocal melody It had but one note and was so easy to be blown that a child could sound it Further they were for the most part used not even in connection with the synagogue buildings but were blown from the roofs of houses so as to be heard at a distance Enough has been said to prove that no instrumental music entered into the services of the Jewish synagogue6

The elements of worship in the Mosaic dispensation were of two kinds

(1) The generic or essential Those observed in the synagogue were the reading and exposition of Godrsquos Word exhortation prayers accompanied with singing if the common recitation by the people of parts of the Psalms can be so characterized and the contribution of alms Without here raising the question whether synagogues had an existence prior to the Babylonian exile one would risk little in taking the ground that during all the time of the churchrsquos development in the past Godrsquos people had been accustomed to meet on Sabbath days for engagement in these essential parts of divine worship The patriarchal dispensation being left out of account in which however every sentiment of piety and reverence the original institution of the seventh day as one of rest and the acquaintance of the Israelites with the law of the Sabbath before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law render it highly probable that such a practice was maintained a few reasons will be intimated in favor of its maintenance during the period of the Jewish economy

First The fourth commandment made the sacred observance of every Sabbath day obligatory It is not reasonable to suppose that the law contemplated the merely individual and private keeping holy of the day

5 De Synag Vetere Lib I Pars i Chap 10 Lightfoot on Matt vi 2 See also Josephus Ant Jud Lib iii Chap 12 6 The orthodox Jews even to the present day [1888] oppose its use in the synagogue The writer knew a congregation in Charleston SC to be rent in twain in consequence of an attempt to introduce an organ

23

Secondly The Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness were accustomed to worship every Sabbath day in mass at the tabernacle It was accessible from every part of the encampment which was around it on every side The proof of this is given in Lev 233 Six days Shall work be done but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest an holy convocation The prescriptive usage of meeting for worship on every Sabbath was thus established during their forty yearsrsquo pilgrimage in the desert In all that time during which they held weekly assemblies let it also be observed they knew nothing of instrumental music It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that this habit ingrained into them in the early period of their national existence and consecrated by innumerable sacred and splendid associations would have ceased to be influential after their wanderings had ceased and they had been permanently located in the land of rest Such an innovation upon their customs could only have occurred in consequence either of a divine command enforcing the change or of a serious defection from their religious principles We know that neither of these causes operated to produce the supposed revolution in their habits of worship Upon their settlement in Canaan they were of course dispersed in consequence of their tribal distribution throughout the length and breadth of the country from Dan to Beersheba and as the tabernacle was necessarily at any particular time confined to one spot it was not accessible to congregations representing all Israel except upon the occasions of the prescribed national festivals What then were they doing on all the other Sabbaths of the year in their cities and towns villages and rural neighborhoods It cannot be supposed that on those Sabbaths they never met for worship7 This consideration is mightily enhanced by the fact that only the males of Israel were enjoined to attend the great annual festivals Were the women the mothers of Israel the trainers of children and youth left destitute of all public worship The supposition cannot be entertained Provision must have been made for their engagement in the stated public worship of their God

Thirdly The priests and Levites when not occupied in the discharge of their formal official duties at the temple were distributed through the land and there is evidence to show that they acted as teachers of schools Is it likely that ministers of religion would have educated the people in everything but the divine law or that they would have failed to assemble them on Sabbath days for the reception of religious instruction or that such instruction would have been unattended by worship It may be said that this amounts to no more than a presumption But if so it is a powerful presumption and is strongly confirmed by other considerations such as those that follow

7 Under every preceding dispensation the sanctity of the Sabbath had been a fundamental part of the revealed religion the synagogue worship goes back possibly to the captivity in Egypt certainly to the captivity in BabylonmdashBreckinridgersquos Subjec Theology p 530

24

Fourthly The Israelites were commanded to proclaim the incoming of the Sabbaths and the new moons by the blowing of trumpets That these seasons were observed with the solemn worship of assemblies is rendered almost certain by the passage in 2 Kings chapter 4 in which it is intimated that on those occasions the prophets were accustomed to hold meetings for instruction and worship The Shunammite whose son had been restored to life by Elisha having lost the child by death proposed to her husband to provide her with the necessaries for a journey to the prophet at Mount Carmel His reply was Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day It is neither new moon nor Sabbath The answer cannot be understood except upon the supposition here contended formdashnamely that the Sabbaths and new moons were seasons of gathering for instruction and worship and it is certain that Carmel was not Jerusalem and that weekly Sabbaths and the beginnings of months did not occur only three times a year

Fifthly In Psalm 748 the Psalmist in view of the devastation of the country by its enemies thus laments They said in their hearts Let us destroy them together they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land It is not necessary to suppose that the buildings here rendered synagogues exactly corresponded with those erected for worship after the return from the Babylonish captivity but they were places for worship8 Possibly they were as Prideaux and others suggest uncovered places of worship proseuchae but they were buildings else how could they have been burned And that they were not the halls adjoining the temple as some conjecture is proved by the statement that they were throughout the land All the synagogues of God in the land Were the temple buildings ubiquitous In this exposition not a few eminent commentators agree Dr McCurdy in Langersquos Commentary on the place says that these buildings were places of meeting in different parts of the land Calvin remarks I readily take the Hebrew moadim in the sense of synagogues because he says all the sanctuaries and speaks expressly of the whole land Adam Clarke observes The word moadey which we translate synagogues may be taken in a more general sense and mean any places where religious assemblies were held and that such places and assemblies did exist long before the Babylonish captivity is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture9

Dr Plumptre in the article on synagogues in Smithrsquos Dictionary of the Bible citing Vitringa On the Synagogue (pp 271 ff) says Jewish writers have claimed for their synagogues a very remote antiquity In well-nigh every place where the phrase before the Lord appears they recognize in it a known sanctuary a fixed place of meeting and therefore a synagogue This

8 See Hornersquos Introduction vol ii p 102 for a confirmation of this view It is there shown to have been advocated by Josephus and Philo and also by Grotius Ernesti Whitby Doddridge and Lardner 9 George Gillespie says After the tribes were settled in the land of promise synagogues were built in the case of an urgent necessity because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place that God had chosen that his name might dwell there Eng Pop Cerem p 116

25

view is taken in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan On the one hand says Dr Plumptre it is probable that if new moons and Sabbaths were observed at all [it was shown above that they were] they must have been attended by some celebration apart from as well as at the tabernacle or the temple On the other so far as we find traces of such local worship it seems to have fallen too readily into a fetich religion sacrifices to ephods and teraphim in groves and on high places offering nothing but a contrast to the lsquoreasonable servicersquo the prayers psalms instruction in the law of the later synagogue This to some extent not universally is lamentably true but the abuse proves the legitimate use of these stated seasons and places of public worship separately from the tabernacle and temple services

The gatherings of the elders during the exile for instruction by the prophet which are repeatedly mentioned in Ezekiel infer that the practice of holding assemblies for worship and the hearing of the law antedated the captivity The exiles carried the custom with them The words in Ezek 1115 16 seem to imply that God manifested his gracious presence in these meetings of his people as in little sanctuaries somewhat as in former and better times he had done at the greater sanctuaries in their native land This view is supported remarks the learned author who has been quoted by the LXX the Vulgate and the Authorized Version It is confirmed by the general consensus of Jewish interpreters

If these arguments have availed to prove that the people of Israel were accustomed to hold stated meetings for worship apart from the services of the tabernacle and the temple the well-ascertained practice of the post-exilian synagogues clearly establishes the absence of instrumental music from those weekly assemblies For had that kind of music been employed in those meetings it would inevitably have been continued in the synagogue-worship Every conceivable consideration would have opposed its eliminationmdashthe powerful force of long-continued precedents the prescriptive usages of the past hallowed by sacred associations the conservative sentiment which resists a revolutionary innovation and more than all the demands of human taste and the requirements of an acknowledged artistic standard But it is certain that no instrumental music was used in the worship of the later synagogue The argument is well-nigh irresistible

If it be contended that instrumental music which had previously existed was purged out of the regular worship of the Jews by the post-exilian reformation the question at issue is given up For if the Jews reformed the worship of the church by abandoning instrumental music much more should it have been discarded at the greater reformation inaugurated by Christianity Otherwise it would be conceded that the Christian Church was less pure in its worship less thoroughly reformed than was the Jewish Church in its later and better state

26

It has thus been shown that the essential parts of divine worship were maintained by the people of God in their ordinary Sabbath-day worship during the Jewish dispensation and it is the purpose of this discussion as it shall be developed to evince the fact that only these essential elements of worship passed over into the Christian dispensation They are permanent and like the covenant of grace in its generic and essential features as contradistinguished to the specific and accidental were designed to endure unchanged through all dispensations

(2) The second kind of elements of worship in the Mosaic economy was the Specific or Accidental which was Typical and Symbolical and as such temporary in its nature10 Warburton says that types and symbols are generically the same in that they are both representations but they are specifically different in that the type represents something future the symbol something past or present Hence he regarded the sacraments of the New Testament as symbols Thornwell observes that they differ from each other in the circumstance that types teach by analogy and symbols by expressive signs Without pausing to discuss the nature of the specific differences between them or to consider the question whether some of the elements in the Jewish ritual service were not at the same time both typical and symbolical I proceed to show that the types of the temple-worship did not as is too often carelessly assumed have exclusive reference to the sacrifice of Christ but that some of them represented beforehand the effects to be produced in the New Testament dispensation by the Holy Ghost and I will then attempt further to show that the instrumental music of the temple-worship fell into the latter class and therefore as having fulfilled its typical and temporary office passed away and vanished upon the introduction of the Christian economy But before these points are developed it is requisite that a few things be premised

In the first place no element in the synagogue-worship was typical and temporary This is too evident to require argument The reading and exposition of the divine Word hortatory addresses the singing of psalms and the contribution of alms are elements of worship which cannot be regarded as types foreshadowing substantial realities to come They belong to the class essential and permanent

In the second place the essential and permanent elements of worship as fundamental to all public religious service entered of course into the temple-worship In this respect there was no difference between the worship of the temple and that of the synagogue

10 Let it be observed that in making this distinction between essential and accidental elements of worship by the accidental are meant elements divinely commanded With the Reformed and Puritan divines I utterly repudiate the distinction as used by Prelatists to justify such accidental elements as human wisdom or church authority adds without divine warrant to the essential elements of worship

27

In the third place whatever element of worship was absent from the synagogue and present in the temple was typical or symbolical in its character Having in common what was essential and permanent the specific difference between them lay in the possession by one of the accidental and temporary and the non-possession by the other of the same Now the only elements falling into this latter class were the typical and symbolical These were embraced in the service of the temple and excluded from that of the synagogue Consequently as instrumental music was not included in the worship of the synagogue but was in that of the temple it must be regarded as having been either typical or symbolical Symbolical it cannot be considered it must therefore have been typical If so the necessity is recognized of attempting in the progress of this discussion to show of what it was typical

In the fourth place some of the elements of the temple-service were directly and solely typical of Christ especially as a priest and as the atoning sacrifice to be offered for sin Others were typical only of the Holy Ghost and still others were typical at one and the same time both of Christ and the Holy Spirit To use thc technically accurate language of theology the impetration or acquisition of salvation is attributed to Christ the application of it to the Holy Spirit But the grace which applies the benefits secured by the work of Christ is closely related to the work by which they were acquired Indeed it is itself acquired by the merit and intercession of the Redeemer They therefore suppose and implicate each other Consequently some of the types have a double reference to both When they immediately represent the Holy Spirit they at the same time mediately represent Christ Some of the positions taken in these preliminary remarks may be justly regarded and carried along with the discussion as assumptions demanding no proof and others will be substantiated as the argument proceeds

First The offices and work of the Holy Spirit were as clearly and definitely predicted and promised in the Old Testament Scriptures as were those of Christ The truth is that they cannot possibly be disjoined Neither would be operative to salvation without the other The whole Old Testament revelation so far as it was evangelical bore a twofold reference to the blood and the water to the meritorious acquisition of salvation by the righteousness and atoning death of Christ and its efficacious application by the grace of the Holy Ghost In the conception of redemption which we find everywhere in the Bible justification and sanctification are never dissociated They are ever represented as the complementary and equally necessary factors of one whole and complete salvation This is the very genius of the gospel as well before as after the death of the Son of God As it was proclaimed to our first parents revealed to Abel Enoch and Noah and as the apostle expressly testifies preached before to Abraham it was essentially promissory in its nature The same promissory character was still more fully disclosed in the features of the Mosaic dispensation in the Psalms and Prophets and as I hope to show in the typical rites and ceremonies of the temple-service That the person and offices

28

of the Holy Spirit were distinctly known to believers under the old dispensation is proved by utterances in the Psalms a book which represents the experience of Godrsquos true people in every condition of their history In the 51st Psalm we have the prayers Take not thy Holy Spirit from me Uphold me with thy free Spirit and in the 143rd Thy Spirit is good lead me to the land of uprightness Isaiah (chap 6310) says They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit which words as they were spoken of the house of Israel suppose that they knew or ought to have known the Holy Spirit as their guide It may be added that the sacred historians of the Old Testament over and over again assert with reference to the heroic worthies of that dispensation that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them All this goes to show that the promises which related to the work of the Holy Spirit at a future period of the churchrsquos development were not unintelligible by those to whom they were delivered

Let us cite some of those declarations which point to the work of the Spirit in the new dispensation Isa 3215-17 After describing the desolation that would be visited upon the land of Israel the prophet says Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever Isa 421 Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Isa 443 4 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water courses Isa 5919 20 21 So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seedrsquos seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever This prophecy in regard to the Spirit resisting a flood of enemies is referred by the Rabbins to the coming of the Messiah Ezek 3625-27 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them Ezek 3713 14 And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves O my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live and I shall place you in your own land then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it saith the Lord Joel

29

228 29 And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit For the reference of this glorious promise to New Testament times we have the inspired testimony of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost when it was measurably but remarkably fulfilled In close connection with the promise that a fountain shall be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness Zechariah utters also the promise 1210 And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications It matters little whether or not with some we take the word spirit here to indicate a disposition That disposition can be produced only by the Holy Spirit The apostle Paul it deserves to be considered terms the Spirit that holy Spirit of promise Eph 113 and in Gal 313 14 he speaks very explicitly about this matter Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith How closely does he couple the atoning work of Christ and the applying work of the Spirit And how clearly does he enounce the fact that the Spirit as well as Christ was promised in the ancient Scriptures and the early revelations made to the people of God

Secondly The offices of the Holy Ghost together with their saving and joy-imparting effects were typified as well as the priestly work and expiatory death of Christ in the services which were peculiar to the temple In view of what has been shown concerning the clearness and fulness with which the work of the Spirit in New Testament times is announced in the prophetical writings we would be prepared to find this true upon an examination of the temple types nor will we be disappointed by such an investigation Those types as well as the prophecies proclaimed the gospel They powerfully preached the whole salvation of the gospelmdashthe blood and the water justification and sanctification How could it be otherwise As God intended by these typical elements to represent as by object-lessons the scheme of redemption to his ancient people who lived before its actual achievement is it reasonable to suppose that he would have furnished an imperfect and inadequate pre-figuration of its essential parts Would he have omitted all instruction beforehand in regard to the mode of its application It is difficult to conceive how any theologian can fail to see the obvious foreshadowing in the temple furniture and service of the grace and work of the ever-blessed Spirit I shall select for comment only those elements which appear with the greatest clearness to typify the offices of the Holy Spirit

The Washing with Water Why was water employed as a type if not to signify what the New Testament Scriptures so unmistakably characterize under that figure Except a man said the

30

Lord Jesus be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 35) The preposition here is omitted before the Spirit in the original and the words may well be rendered of water even the Spirit At least this must be the meaning in the judgment of any one who would not co-ordinate external water with the almighty grace of the Holy Ghost in the new creation of the soul And to talk of onersquos being spiritually born in part of an outward symbol is to speak unintelligibly Paul several times uses washing and water to signify cleansing by the Holy Spirit Eph 526 That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the washing of water by the word I Cor 611 And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Tit 35 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and [or even the] renewing of the Holy Ghost John emphasizes the issue of water and blood from the side of Jesus on the cross and declares This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth And there are three that bear witness in earth the Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one (John 2034 I John 56 8) The Spirit bears witness both to justification and sanctification It is he who sanctifies and he who bears witness with his own work in the soul The analogy then between the type and the anti-type as to the offices respectively discharged leads to the conclusion that the lavers and ablutions of the temple typified the grace of the Holy Spirit This view is far from being singular It has the support of the illustrious Lightfoot The end of it [the laver] was he says to wash the hands and feet of the priests but the most ultimate end was to signify the washing and purifying by the Spirit of grace which is so oft called water in the Scripture And so the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice and the washing in the water of the laver did read the two great divinity lectures of washing by the blood of Christ from guilt and by the grace of God from filthiness and pollution11 This witness is true and his learning and piety render it superfluous to cite the testimony of others to the same purpose

The Anointing Oil Is it not clear from Scripture that this typified the Holy Spirit Under the Old Testament economy priests prophets and kings were anointed Did the anointing oil of the temple signify that Christ would anoint himself or rather did it not prefigure his anointing by the Holy Ghost He is the Christ Godrsquos anointed One and the holy Unction was the Spirit of wisdom power and grace Acts 1038 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power This direct testimony is sufficient The anointing oil of the temple discharged the typical office of prefiguring the holy Unction with which Jesus was anointed and who coming from him upon all his people teacheth them all things (1 John 227) This view also is sustained by the authority of the distinguished scholar who has already been cited The

11 Works Vol ix p 419 London 1823 Fairbairn takes substantially the same view Typology of Scripture Vol ii pp 212 213 See also MrsquoEwen Types Bk iii sect 3

2

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE QUESTION STATED

I GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE

II ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

III ARGUMENT FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT

IV ARGUMENT FROM THE PRESBYTERIAN STANDARDS

V HISTORICAL ARGUMENT

VI ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC CONSIDERED

VII CONCLUDING REMARKS

3

PREFACE

The following treatise owes its origin to a desire expressed by members of the last Senior Class in Columbia Theological Seminary to hear a discussion of the question whether instrumental music may be legitimately used in the public worship of the Church Possessed of deep convictions on that subject the writer could not refuse compliance with such a request and accordingly delivered a course of lectures to the class A dear Christian friend who heard one of these lectures preached as a sermon suggested the propriety of their being published and being aware that the writer was not encumbered with a superfluity of this worldrsquos goods generously tendered the means to render the suggestion practical Although cautioned that she might make a useless pecuniary sacrifice as the current of the Churchrsquos views is now set in a direction opposed to the doctrine of the treatise she insisted upon executing her intention on the ground that she would contribute to erect a testimony to the truth Hence the appearance of this little book before the public

It will no doubt be said that the attempt to prove the unjustifiable employment of instrumental music in the public worship of the Church is schismatical since the practice is now well-nigh universal that it is trivial inasmuch as it concerns a mere circumstantial in the services of religion and that it is useless as the tendency which is resisted is invincible and is destined to triumph throughout Protestant Christendom To all this one answer alone is offered and it is sufficient namely that the attempt is grounded in truth It involves a contest for a mighty and all-comprehending principle by opposing one of the special forms in which it is now commonly transcended and violated It is that principle emphasized in the following remarks as scriptural and regulative that lends importance to the discussion and redeems it from the reproach of being narrow and trifling

The argument is commended to the consideration of any of Godrsquos people into whose hands it may fall but it is especially addressed to Presbyterians to whose venerable standards as well as directly to the Scriptures the appeal for proof is taken They are entreated to read it and to render judgment according to the evidence submitted May that Almighty Spirit whose illumination our divine Lord and Saviour promised to his followers guide each reader to the truth

COLUMBIA SC

4

THE QUESTION STATED

In the discussion of the question Whether the use of instrumental music in the worship of the church is permissible or not it must be premised

First that the question is not in regard to private or family worship or to that of social gatherings which are not ecclesiastical in their nature nor with reference to the utility or tastefulness of instrumental music nor in relation to the abuse to which it may be liable but

Secondly the question is precisely Is the use of instrumental music in the public worship of the church justifiable The design of this discussion is with the help of the divine Spirit to prove the negative

5

I

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE

Attention at the outset is invoked to the considerations which serve to establish the following controlling principle A divine warrant is necessary for every element of doctrine government and worship in the church that is whatsoever in these spheres is not commanded in the Scriptures either expressly or by good and necessary consequence from their statements is forbidden

1 This principle is deducible by logical inference from the great truthmdashconfessed by Protestantsmdashthat the Scriptures are an infallible rule of faith and practice and therefore supreme perfect and sufficient for all the needs of the Church All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works This truth operates positively to the inclusion of everything in the doctrine government and worship of the church which is commanded explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and negatively to the exclusion of everything which is not so commanded

2 This principle of the necessity of a divine warrant for everything in the faith and practice of the church is proved by didactic statements of Scripture

Num 1539 40 Remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes after which ye use to go a whoring that ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your God Ex 2540 And look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount Heb 85 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle for See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount Deut 42 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish aught from it that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you Deut 1232 What thing soever I command you observe to do it thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it Prov 305 6 Every word of God is pure he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him Add thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar Isa 820 To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Dan 244 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people Matt 156 Thus have

6

ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition Matt 2819 20 Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Col 220-23 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances (touch not taste not handle not which are all to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh 2 Tim 316 17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works Rev 2218 19 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and out of the things which are written in this book

These solemn statements and awful warnings teach us the lesson that to introduce any devices and inventions of our own into the doctrine government or worship of the church is to add to the words of God and to fail in maintaining the principles and truths or in complying with the institutions and ordinances delivered to us in the Scriptures is to take away from the words of God The Romanists for example who hold the doctrine of transubstantiation and observe the sacrifice of the mass add to Godrsquos words and the Quakers who maintain the co-ordinate authority of immediate revelations of new original truth with the inspired Oracles and neglect the observance of the sacraments both add to and take away from them And in like manner those who import instrumental music into the ordained worship of the New Testament Church transcend the warrant of Scripture and add to the words which Christ our Lord has commanded

3 There are concrete instances recorded in the Scriptures which graphically illustrate the same great principle

(1) Gen 4 Cain and his offering The brothers Cain and Abel had been in childhood beyond all doubt instructed by their parents in the knowledge of the first promise of redemption to be accomplished by atonement They had we have every reason to believe often seen their father offering animal sacrifices in the worship of God To this mode of worship they had been accustomed Cain the type of rationalists and fabricators of rites and ceremonies in the house of the Lord consulted his own wisdom and taste and ventured to offer in Godrsquos worship the fruit of the groundmdashan un-bloody sacrifice while Abel conforming to the appointments and prescribed usages in which he had been trained expressed his faith and obedience by offering a

7

lamb Abelrsquos worship was accepted and Cainrsquos rejected And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect Thus in the immediate family of Adam we behold a signal and typical instance of self-assertion and disregard of divine prescriptions in the matter of worship This was swiftly followed by Godrsquos disapprobation and then came the development of sin in the atrocious crime of fratricide and the banishment of the murderer from the communion of his family and the presence of his God

(2) Lev 101-3 Nadab and Abihu And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not1 And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Then Moses said unto Aaron This is it that the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified And Aaron held his peace These young men as the sons of Israelrsquos high priest were legitimately employed in discharging the appointed functions of the sacerdotal office But they presumed to add to Godrsquos commandments Exercising their own will in regard to the mode of his worship they did that which he did not command them and they were instantly killed for their wicked temerity

(3) Num 16 Korah Dathan and Abiram God had consecrated those descendants of Levi who sprang from Aaron to the priesthood while the remaining descendants of Levi were set apart to other offices pertaining to the service of the tabernacle Korah was a Levite but not a son of Aaron Dathan and Abiram were not even Levites but appear to have descended from Reuben When therefore these men asserting the claim that the whole congregation were entitled to rank with Moses and Aaron ventured to assume to themselves functions which God had restricted to a certain class they were overtaken by the swift indignation of Jehovah and perished in an awful manner The ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods They and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the congregation

(4) Num 20 Moses smiting the rock at Kadesh When on a previous occasion the Israelites were suffering from thirst God commanded Moses to smite the rock at Horeb This he did and water gushed forth abundantly The apostle Paul tells us that that rock typified Christ The typical teaching furnished by Moses then was that from the one death of Christ under the smiting of the law the grace of the Holy Ghost should proceed to satisfy the thirst of the soul

1 That is which he did not command them

8

Christ was to be smitten unto death only once Now again at Kadesh the Israelites suffer for want of water God commands Moses to speak unto the rock To this explicit command he rashly ventured to add He spoke to the people instead of the rock and he smote the rock and smote it twice He used his own judgment asserted his own will and taught the people falsely For this sin he and Aaron who concurred with him in its commission were excluded from entrance into the promised land And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother and speak ye to the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth his water and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock and he said unto them Hear now ye rebels must we fetch you water out of this rock And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them

We have here an inexpressibly affecting instance of the sin and folly of adding human inventions to the ordinances of Godrsquos appointment of the dreadful results that may follow from what men may conceive slight departures from obedience to the commands of God Not to speak of Aaron the accomplished orator the venerable saint the first anointed high priest of his people this incomparable man Moses in whom were blended all natural gifts and supernatural graces the deliverer the legislator the historian the poet the judge and the commander of Israel after having brought them out of Egypt conducted them through the parted waters of the Red Sea mediated between them and God amidst the terrors of Sinai led them through the horrors of the waste and howling desertmdashthis glorious man now in sight of the Jordan which like a thread separated them from the long-sought long-coveted goal of their hearts is doomed for one addition to Godrsquos command which no doubt seemed to him but a slight deviation from his instructions to die short of the promised land

(5) I Sam 13 Saul offering a burnt-offering at Gilgal The king had no command to officiate as priest Saul added to Godrsquos command and performed a function for which he had no authority The circumstances seemed to him to justify the act But he gained the divine disapprobation and lost his kingdom for the blunder As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling And he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him And Saul said Bring hither a burnt-offering to me and peace-offerings And he offered the burnt-offering And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-

9

offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him And Samuel said What hast thou done And Saul said Because I saw that the people were scattered from me and that thou camest not within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash therefore said I The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal and I have not made supplication unto the Lord I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt-offering And Samuel said to Saul Thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee

(6) I Chron 137 8 1511-15 Uzza and the ark and Davidrsquos subsequent obedience The Levites or more particularly the Kohathites were expressly commanded to bear the ark The manner of bearing it was also commanded Rings were appended through which staves were run These poles covered with gold were to be supported on the shoulders of the bearers They were forbidden to touch the ark upon pain of death After that the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die Such was Godrsquos command In transporting it from the house of Abinadab David infringed the divine command by directing the ark to be borne on a cart drawn by oxen Then when the animals stumbled Uzza with the intention of saving the ark from falling touched it with his hand He was instantly killed for his pious disobedience And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart And David and all Israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumbled And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God The offence was the more inexcusable because the staves were never detached from the ark and it is not at all likely that the Philistines who had been subjected to so severe a treatment while they had it in their possession had ventured to steal them And it deserves consideration that those heathen had not been killed for handling the ark while for doing the same thing Godrsquos people who should have known better were taught an awful lesson

The magnificent demonstration suffered a disastrous arrest and the king of Israel sobered by the warning he had received returned home to do what he ought to have done beforemdashto study the law of God Having accomplished this neglected office he makes a second attempt to remove the sacred symbol of Godrsquos covenant to Jerusalem but in a different fashion from the

10

former Let us hear the record And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests and for the Levites for Uriel Asaiah and Joel Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab and said unto them Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it For because ye did it not at the first the Lord our God made a breach upon us for that we sought him not after the due order So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel And the children of the Levites bare the ark upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord It merits notice that when the ark was to be removed and instated in its place in the temple which was about to be dedicated Solomon caused the due order to be observed And all the elders of Israel came and the Levites took up the ark And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the congregation and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle these did the priests and the Levites bring up And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place2 The history of this matter enforces the impressive lesson that we are not at liberty to use our own judgment and to act without a divine warrant in regard to things of Godrsquos appointment

(7) 2 Chron 2616-21 King Uzziah officiating as a priest God had given no warrant to a king to act as priest and Uzziah arrogantly undertook without such warrant to discharge sacerdotal functions The consequences of his impiety are vividly depicted in the following record But when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him fourscore priests of the Lord that were valiant men and they withstood Uzziah the king and said unto him It appertaineth not unto thee Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for thou hast trespassed neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God Then Uzziah was wroth and had a censer in his hand to burn incense and while he was wroth with the priests the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked upon him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence yea himself hasted also to go out because the Lord had smitten him And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death and dwelt in a several house being a leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord

(8) 2 Chron 283-5 King Ahaz doubly offending as to function and place He performed priestly functions without a divine warrant and performed them in places which God had not appointed For this wicked self-assertion he was visited with divine vengeance Moreover he

2 2 Chron 5457

11

burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of them captives and brought them to Damascus And he was also delivered into the hands of the king of Israel who smote him with a great slaughter

(9) The jealousy of God for the principle of a divine warrant for everything in his worship is most conspicuously illustrated in New Testament times by the tremendous judgments which befell the Jewish people for perpetuating without such a warrant the typical ritual of the temple-service Until the great atoning sacrifice was offered they had a positive warrant from God for the observance of that order But when that sacrifice had been offered the veil of the temple had been rent in twain and the Holy Ghost had been copiously poured out at the inauguration of a new dispensation the positive warrant for the temple-worship was withdrawn This Stephen insisted on before the Council and the illustrious witness for Christ was murdered for his testimony He charged that when their fathers had no warrant to worship sacrificially except at the temple they had persisted in observing that worship elsewhere and now that God had withdrawn the warrant to worship at the temple they demanded the right to worship there Ye do always said the glorious servant of Jesus resist the Holy Ghost For this sin by which they endorsed their rejection of their Messiah and Saviour their church-state and national polity were demolished and they after the experience of an unparalleled tribulation were scattered to the four winds of heaven Have we not the evidence before us at this day

The mighty principle has thus been established by an appeal to the didactic statements of Godrsquos word and to special instances recorded in scriptural history that a divine warrant is required for everything in the faith and practice of the Church that whatsoever is not in the Scriptures commanded either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence is forbidden The special application of this principle to the worship of God as illustrated in the concrete examples which have been furnished cannot escape the least attentive observation God is seen manifesting a most vehement jealousy in protecting the purity of his worship Any attempt to assert the judgment the will the taste of man apart from the express warrant of his Word and to introduce into his worship human inventions devices and methods was overtaken by immediate retribution and rebuked by the thunderbolts of his wrath Nor need we wonder at this for the service which the creature professes to render to God reaches its highest and most formal expression in the worship which is offered him In this act the majesty of the Most High is directly confronted The worshipper presents himself face to face with the infinite Sovereign

12

of heaven and earth and assumes to lay at his feet the sincerest homage of the heart In the performance of such an act to violate divine appointments or transcend divine prescription to affirm the reason of a sinful creature against the wisdom the will of a sinful creature against the authority of God is deliberately to flaunt an insult in his face and to hurl an indignity against his throne What else could follow but the flash of divine indignation It is true that in the New Testament dispensation the same swift and visible arrest of this sin is not the ordinary rule But the patience and forbearance of God can constitute no justification of its commission Its punishment if it be not repented of is only deferred Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil while the delayed justice of God is gathering to itself indignation to burst forth like an overwhelming tempest in the dreadful day of wrath

The principle that has been emphasized is in direct opposition to that maintained by Romanists and Prelatists and I regret to say by lax Presbyterians that what is not forbidden in the Scriptures is permitted The Church of England in her twentieth article concedes to the church a power to decree rites and ceremonies with this limitation alone upon its exercise that it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to Godrsquos written word3 The principle of the discretionary power of the church in regard to things not commanded by Christ in his Word was the chief fountain from which flowed the gradually increasing tide of corruptions that swept the Latin church into apostasy from the gospel of Godrsquos grace And as surely as causes produce their appropriate effects and history repeats itself in obedience to that law any Protestant church which embodies that principle in its creed is destined sooner or later to experience a similar fate The same too may be affirmed of a church which formally rejects it and practically conforms to it The reason is plain The only bridle that checks the degenerating tendency of the churchmdasha tendency manifested in all agesmdashis the Word of God for the Spirit of grace Himself ordinarily operates only in connection with that Word If this

3 Some curious and remarkable statements have been made with reference to this article When in 1808 the question of the introduction of instrumental music into public worship was before the Presbytery of Glasgow the Rev Dr Begg father of the late Dr James Begg published a treatise on the Use of Organs in which the following statement is attributed to the Rev Alexander Hislop The Church of England has admitted into its articles this principle that it belongs to lsquothe churchrsquo of her own authority to lsquodecree rites and ceremoniesrsquo (Article 20 ) As a matter of historical fact this principle was never agreed to by the Convocation that adopted the Thirty-nine Articles this sentence being found neither in the first printed edition of the articles nor in the draft of them that passed the Convocation and which is still in existence with the autograph signatures of the members but it is believed to have been surreptitiously inserted by the hand of Queen Elizabeth herself who had much of the over-bearing spirit of her father Henry VIII and who as head of the church which the English constitution made her was determined to have a pompous worship under her ecclesiastical control In support of this statement reference is made to authorities in Presbyterian Review July 1843 The Use of Organs etc by James Begg DD (p 150) See also Bannermanrsquos Church of Christ Vol I p 339

13

restraint be discarded the downward lapse is sure The words of the great theologian John Owenmdashand the British Isles have produced no greatermdashare solemn and deserve to be seriously pondered The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God either as to matter or manner beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry of all the confusion blood persecution and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world

In view of such considerations as these confirmed as they are by the facts of all past history it is easy to see how irrelevant and baseless is the taunt flung by high churchmen ritualists and latitudinarians of every stripe against the maintainers of the opposite principle that they are narrow-minded bigots who take delight in insisting upon trivial details The truth is exactly the other way The principle upon which this cheap ridicule is cast is simple broad majestic It affirms only the things that God has commanded the institutions and ordinances that he has prescribed and besides this discharges only a negative office which sweeps away every trifling invention of manrsquos meretricious fancy It is not the supporters of this principle but their opponents who delight in insisting upon crossings genuflexions and bowings to the east upon vestments altars and candles upon organs and cornets and the dear antiphonies that so bewitch their prelates and their chapters with the goodly echo they make in fine upon all that finical trumpery which inherited from the woman clothed in scarlet marks the trend backward to the Rubicon and the seven-hilled mart of souls

But whatever others may think or do Presbyterians cannot forsake this principle without the guilt of defection from their own venerable standards and from the testimonies sealed by the blood of their fathers Among the principles that the Reformers extracted from the rubbish of corruption and held up to light again none were more comprehensive far-reaching and profoundly reforming than this It struck at the root of every false doctrine and practice and demanded the restoration of the true Germany has been infinitely the worse because of Lutherrsquos failure to apply it to the full Calvin enforced it more fully The great French Protestant Church with the exception of retaining a liturgical relic of popery gave it a grand application and France suffered an irreparable loss when she dragooned almost out of existence the body that maintained it John Knox stamped it upon the heart of the Scottish Church and it constituted the glory of the English Puritans Alas that it is pasting into decadence in the Presbyterian churches of England Scotland and America What remains but that those who still see it and cling to it as to something dearer than life itself should continue to utter however feebly however inoperatively their unchanging testimony to its truth It is the acropolis of the churchrsquos liberties the palladium of her purity That gone nothing will be left to hope but to strain its gaze towards the dawn of the millennial day Thenmdashwe are entitled to expectmdasha

14

more thorough-going and glorious reformation will be effected than any that has blessed the church and the world since the magnificent propagation of Christianity by the labors of the inspired apostles themselves

15

II

ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the Jewish dispensation God was pleased to proceed in accordance with the great principle which has been signalized in regard to the introduction of instrumental music into the public worship of his people He kept the ordering of this part of his formal and instituted worship in his own hands There is positive proof that it was never made an element of that worship except by his express command Without his warrant it was excluded only with it was it employed

1 Let us notice the operation of this principle with reference to the tabernacle-worship

Moses received the mode of constructing the tabernacle and the order of its worship by divine revelation See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount It will be admitted that the instructions thus divinely given descended to the most minute detailsmdashthe sort of fabrics and skins to be used and their diverse colors the pins the ouches and the taches the ablutions the vestments and the actions of the officiating priests and Levites the ingredients of the holy ointment and the incense the parts the arrangements the instruments of worshipmdashto everything connected with the tabernacle these specific directions referred Of course if God had intended instrumental music to be employed it would have been included in these particular directions the instruments would have been specified for its performance and regulations enjoined for its use

What now are the facts No directions are given respecting instruments of music Two instruments of sound are provided for but they were of such a character as to make it impracticable to use them ordinarily as accompaniments of the voice in singing The record is And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Make thee two trumpets of silver of a whole piece shalt thou make them that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly and for the journeying of the camps And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you thou shalt blow an alarm with the trumpets and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies Also in the days of your gladness and in your solemn days and in the beginnings of your months ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings that they may be to you for a memorial before your God I am the Lord your God The blowing of these trumpets as a signal for marching or for going to war had certainly nothing to do with worship neither did the call of the congregation to assemble belong to the performance of worship any more than

16

a church bell now the ringing of which ceases when the services begin There is nothing to show that the blowing of the trumpets on festival days and at the beginning of months over the offerings was accompanied by singing on the part of priests and Levites There is no mention of that fact and Jewish tradition opposes the supposition Moreover it is almost certain that the blowing of trumpets on such occasions was a representative act performed by the priests and that consequently it was not accompanied by the singing of the congregation It is true that there is one recorded exception (2 Chron 512 13) which occurred however when the tabernacle had given way to the temple At the dedication of the latter edifice the priests blew the trumpets at the same time that the Levites sang and played upon instruments of music so as to make one sound but it is evident that on that great occasion of rejoicing what was aimed at was not musical harmony but a powerful crash of jubilant sound We are shut up to the conclusion that there was nothing in the tabernacle-worship as ordered by Moses which could be justly characterized as instrumental music

This absence of instrumental music from the services of the tabernacle continued not only during the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert but after their entrance into the promised land throughout the protracted period of the Judges the reign of Saul and a part of Davidrsquos This is a noteworthy fact Although David was a lover of instrumental music and himself a performer upon the harp it was not until some time after his reign had begun that this order of things was changed and as we shall see changed by divine command Let us hear the scriptural record (1 Chron 231-6) So when David was old and full of days he made Solomon his son king over Israel And he gathered together all the princes of Israel with the priests and the Levites Now the Levites were numbered by the age of thirty years and upward and their number by their polls man by man was fifty and eight thousand of which twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and six thousand were officers and judges moreover four thousand were porters and four thousand praised the Lord with the instruments which I made said David to praise therewith And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi namely Gershon Kohath and Merari Now how did David come to make this alteration in the Mosaic order which had been established by divine revelation For the answer let us again consult the sacred record (1 Chron 2811-13 19) Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch and of the houses thereof and of the treasuries thereof and of the inner parlors thereof and of the place of the mercy-seat and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord and of all the chambers round about of the treasuries of the house of God and of the treasuries of the dedicated things also for the courses of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord All this said David the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me and all the works of this pattern 2 Chron 2925 26 And he [Solomon] set the Levites in the house of the Lord

17

with cymbals with psalteries and with harps according to the commandment of David and of Gad the kingrsquos seer and of Nathan the prophet for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets

In the light of these statements of Godrsquos Word several things are made evident which challenge our serious attention First instrumental music never was divinely warranted as an element in the tabernacle-worship until David received inspired instructions to introduce it as preparatory to the transition which was about to be effected to the more elaborate ritual of the temple Secondly when the temple was to be built and its order of worship to be instituted David received a divine revelation in regard to it just as Moses had concerning the tabernacle with its ordinances Thirdly this direct revelation to David was enforced upon Solomon and upon the priests and Levites by inspired communications touching the same subject from the prophets Gad and Nathan Fourthly instrumental music would not have been constituted an element in the temple-worship had not God expressly authorized it by his command The public worship of the tabernacle up to the time when it was to be merged into the temple had been a stranger to it and so great an innovation could have been accomplished only by divine authority Godrsquos positive enactment grounded the propriety of the change

Is it not clear that the great principle that whatsoever is not commanded by God either expressly or impliedly in relation to the public worship of his house is forbidden meets here a conspicuous illustration The bearing of all this upon the Christian church is as striking as it is obvious If under a dispensation dominantly characterized by external appointments instrumental music could not be introduced into the worship of Godrsquos sanctuary except in consequence of a warrant furnished by him how can a church existing under the far simpler and more spiritual dispensation of the gospel venture without such a warrant to incorporate it into its public services and that no such warrant can be pleaded will be made apparent as the argument expands

2 Against the conclusiveness of this argument it is objected that the Israelites were accustomed to use instrumental music at their option and that especially was this the case on occasions of public rejoicing when thanksgivings were by masses of the people rendered to God for signal benefits conferred by his delivering providence So far as the allegation concerns the employment of that kind of music in private or social life it is irrelevant to the scope of an argument which has reference explicitly and solely to its use in the public worship of Godrsquos house This will rule out many of the instances which are cited to prove the untenableness of the principle contended for in this discussion

There remains however another class of cases to which attention may be fairly directed cases in which public worship appeared to be offered Into this class fall the instances of Miriamrsquos

18

playing upon the timbrel at the Red Sea the welcome of Saul and David by the women with singing dancing and instrumental music the like instance of Jephthahrsquos daughter the accompanying of the ark by David and Israel with bands of music and the minstrelsy of the prophets to whom Saul joined himself In reply to the objection based upon these instances the general ground may be taken that they are examples not of church-worship but of public rejoicing on the part of the nation or of communities with the exception of the prophetsrsquo minstrelsy which will be separately considered Some special remarks are however pertinent in regard to them

In the first place it will be noticed from the account of the triumphant rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea that the men sang only Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake saying etc What can be gathered from this simple singing of the males of Israel in praise of God for their great deliverance in favor of instrumental music in worship it is rather difficult to see

In the second place it was Miriam and the women who used instruments of music on the occasion And Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances The argument of the objector proves too much If from this instance the legitimacy of employing instrumental music in the public worship of the Jewish Church is to be inferred so may the legitimacy of its use by women in that worship But the history of the appointments of that worship furnishes no evidence of the tenableness of the latter inference The contrary is proved Women were excluded from any prominent at least any official function in the services of Godrsquos house in the Mosaic dispensation4 It was the males of Israel who were commanded to repair to Jerusalem on those festival occasions when bursts of instrumental music were united with the singing of praise in the temple-worship Indeed so far from the women taking an active part in that worship it would seem to have been limited as to its outward expression in sounds to the priests and Levites who as the divinely appointed official representatives of the congregation sang and played on instruments of music The argument might do for a modern advocate of womanrsquos rights but it will hardly answer for the Jewish dispensation It is as barren of results as was Miriam herself of issue

In the third place it again proves too much if the word rendered dances is correctly translated It would prove that religious dancing was an element in the prescribed worship of Godrsquos people The consequence refutes the argument

4 The daughters of Heman mentioned I Chron 255 were not singers and performers on instruments in the public worship for they are not included in the enumeration of the courses which follows

19

But to return to the general position that the instances mentioned in the objection were those not of ecclesiastical worship but of national rejoicing Against this general view it is urged in reply that an unwarrantable distinction is made between the Jewish church and the Jewish nation This raises the question whether such a distinction is valid Were state and church identical Did the members of the state act as members of the church Did the members of the church act as members of the state It may be admitted that in the mainmdashthat is with certain exceptions such as the proselytes of righteousness for examplemdashthe nation and the church were numerically coincident Ordinarilymdashthat is with certain exceptionsmdashthe rite of circumcision designated one alike a member of the state and of the church But that these two institutes were identical that the functions of the one were the functions of the other considered as organisms is to my mind not susceptible of proof It would be unsuitable here to enter at large into this question but it lies across the track of the argument in hand and a brief consideration of it as it is not illogically interjected will not be regarded as impertinent The question is acutely and ably discussed by that great man George Gillespie in his Aaronrsquos Rod Blossoming I shall give a mere outline the bare heads of a part of his argument to prove that the Jewish state and church although in the main the same materially that is as to personal constituents were organically and formally distinct institutes and I do this the more readily because Gillespiersquos valuable work is now rare and difficult of access They are distinct

(1) In respect of laws The judicial law was given to the state the ceremonial law to the church

(2) In respect of acts The members of the state did not as such worship God and offer sacrifices in the temple etc and the members of the church did not as such inflict physical punishments

(3) In respect of controversies to be decided Some concerned the Lordrsquos matters and were to be ecclesiastically settled some the kingrsquos matters and were to be civilly decided

(4) In respect of officers The priests and Levites were church officers magistrates and judges were state officers

(5) In respect of continuance The Romans took away the Jewish state and civil government but the Jewish church and ecclesiastical government remained

(6) In respect of variation The constitution and government of the Jewish state underwent serious changes under different civil administrations but we cannot say that the church was remodelled as often as the state was

20

(7) In respect of members There were proselytes the proselytes of righteousness who were admitted to membership in the church with its privileges but were not entitled to the privileges of members of the state

(8) In respect of government In the prosecution of this argument to prove the distinctness of the Jewish church and state Gillespie takes the ground that there were two Sanhedrims one civil the other ecclesiastical and he cites as maintaining that view Zepperus Junius Piscator Wolfius Gerhard Godwin Bucerus Walaeus Pelargus Sopingius the Dutch Annotators Bertramus Apollonius Strigelius the professors of Groningen Reynolds Paget LrsquoEmpereur and Elias cited by Buxtorf

[This special argument Gillespie presses elaborately and acutely by more than a dozen separate considerations derived from Scripture But as the question has been ably debated on both sides by men learned in Jewish affairs no positive opinion is here expressed as to the conclusiveness of the proofs presented by the great Scotch divine]

(9) There was an ecclesiastical excommunication among the Jews different from the penalties inflicted by the criminal law of the state

Such are the ribs merely of a powerful argument in favor of the distinction between the Jewish state and church by one who had the reputation of being one of the astutest debaters in the Westminster Assembly of Divines That distinguished scholar Dr Joseph Addison Alexander expresses the opinion in his Primitive Church Offices that the Jewish state and church were one organization with two distinct classes of functions one civil and another ecclesiastical But Gillespie shows that the numerical components of some of the courts were different they consisted of different men Take either view however and the ends of this argument are met more conclusively upon Gillespiersquos it is true but conclusively upon both What the state as such did the church as such did not do and vice versa And if this be so it follows that the same thing holds in regard to the people What they did in a national capacity they did not necessarily do in an ecclesiastical When then Miriam and the women with her the women who welcomed Saul and David returning home in triumph the daughter of Jephthah celebrating her fatherrsquos victory and the mass of people who accompanied the ark in its transportation to Jerusalem played on instruments of music they were commemorating national events with appropriate national rejoicings They were not acting worship as the church or as the members of the church

In regard to the company of prophets whom Saul joined it is sufficient to say that they were in part the poets and minstrels of the nation and that as the incident occurred during the existence of the tabernacle the incontestable proof which has been already exhibited that

21

instrumental music such as that which they employed was not allowed in its worship is enough to sweep all ground from beneath the objection now considered against the operation of the great principle of limitation upon church worship for which I have contended This holds good whether or not the view which has been presented as to these prophets be correct Their playing on instruments had nothing to do with the public formally instituted worship of the house of the Lord

It has thus been shown by a direct appeal to the Scriptures that during all the protracted period in which the tabernacle was Godrsquos sanctuary the great principle was enforced that only what God commands is permitted and what he does not command is forbidden in the public worship of his house Moses with all his wisdom the Judges with all their intrepidity Saul with all his waywardness and self-will David the sweet Psalmist of Israel with all his skill in the musical art did not any of them venture to violate that principle and introduce into the public services of Godrsquos house the devices of their imagination or the inventions of their taste The lesson is certainly impressive coming as it does from that distant age and it behooves those who live in a dispensation this side of the cross of Calvary and the day of Pentecost to show cause beyond a peradventure why they are discharged from the duty of obedience to the divine will in this vitally important matter

3 The next step in this argument is to show that no musical instruments were used in the synagogue-worship

As this is almost universally admitted no extended argument is needed to prove it It might have been expected from the jealousy which God had always peculiarly manifested in enforcing the principle that without an express warrant from him nothing was to be introduced into the public worship of his people and especially from the facts already emphasized that no instruments of music were allowed to be employed in the tabernacle and that they were included in the service at the temple only in consequence of explicit divine instructions to that effect it might have been expected that instrumental music would not have been incorporated into the worship of the Jews on ordinary Sabbath days not embraced in the three national festivals This presumption is confirmed by the facts of the case

The writers who have most carefully investigated Jewish antiquities and have written learnedly and elaborately in regard to the synagogue concur in showing that its worship was destitute of instrumental music What singing there was and there was not much of it in proportion to the other elements of worship was plain and simple In his great work On the Ancient Synagogue

22

Vitringa shows5 that there were only two instruments of sound used in connection with the synagogue and that these were employed not in worship or along with it as an accompaniment but as publishing signalsmdashfirst for proclaiming the new year secondly for announcing the beginning of the Sabbath thirdly for publishing the sentence of excommunication and fourthly for heralding fasts These were their sole uses There were no sacrifices over which they were to be blown as in the tabernacle and temple And from the nature of the instruments it is plain that they could not have accompanied the voice in singing They were only of two kindsmdashtrumpets (tubae) and ramsrsquo horns or cornets (buccinae) The former were straight the latter curved Nor is it to be supposed that the cornet like the modern instrument of that name was susceptible of modulation and therefore of accompanying vocal melody It had but one note and was so easy to be blown that a child could sound it Further they were for the most part used not even in connection with the synagogue buildings but were blown from the roofs of houses so as to be heard at a distance Enough has been said to prove that no instrumental music entered into the services of the Jewish synagogue6

The elements of worship in the Mosaic dispensation were of two kinds

(1) The generic or essential Those observed in the synagogue were the reading and exposition of Godrsquos Word exhortation prayers accompanied with singing if the common recitation by the people of parts of the Psalms can be so characterized and the contribution of alms Without here raising the question whether synagogues had an existence prior to the Babylonian exile one would risk little in taking the ground that during all the time of the churchrsquos development in the past Godrsquos people had been accustomed to meet on Sabbath days for engagement in these essential parts of divine worship The patriarchal dispensation being left out of account in which however every sentiment of piety and reverence the original institution of the seventh day as one of rest and the acquaintance of the Israelites with the law of the Sabbath before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law render it highly probable that such a practice was maintained a few reasons will be intimated in favor of its maintenance during the period of the Jewish economy

First The fourth commandment made the sacred observance of every Sabbath day obligatory It is not reasonable to suppose that the law contemplated the merely individual and private keeping holy of the day

5 De Synag Vetere Lib I Pars i Chap 10 Lightfoot on Matt vi 2 See also Josephus Ant Jud Lib iii Chap 12 6 The orthodox Jews even to the present day [1888] oppose its use in the synagogue The writer knew a congregation in Charleston SC to be rent in twain in consequence of an attempt to introduce an organ

23

Secondly The Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness were accustomed to worship every Sabbath day in mass at the tabernacle It was accessible from every part of the encampment which was around it on every side The proof of this is given in Lev 233 Six days Shall work be done but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest an holy convocation The prescriptive usage of meeting for worship on every Sabbath was thus established during their forty yearsrsquo pilgrimage in the desert In all that time during which they held weekly assemblies let it also be observed they knew nothing of instrumental music It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that this habit ingrained into them in the early period of their national existence and consecrated by innumerable sacred and splendid associations would have ceased to be influential after their wanderings had ceased and they had been permanently located in the land of rest Such an innovation upon their customs could only have occurred in consequence either of a divine command enforcing the change or of a serious defection from their religious principles We know that neither of these causes operated to produce the supposed revolution in their habits of worship Upon their settlement in Canaan they were of course dispersed in consequence of their tribal distribution throughout the length and breadth of the country from Dan to Beersheba and as the tabernacle was necessarily at any particular time confined to one spot it was not accessible to congregations representing all Israel except upon the occasions of the prescribed national festivals What then were they doing on all the other Sabbaths of the year in their cities and towns villages and rural neighborhoods It cannot be supposed that on those Sabbaths they never met for worship7 This consideration is mightily enhanced by the fact that only the males of Israel were enjoined to attend the great annual festivals Were the women the mothers of Israel the trainers of children and youth left destitute of all public worship The supposition cannot be entertained Provision must have been made for their engagement in the stated public worship of their God

Thirdly The priests and Levites when not occupied in the discharge of their formal official duties at the temple were distributed through the land and there is evidence to show that they acted as teachers of schools Is it likely that ministers of religion would have educated the people in everything but the divine law or that they would have failed to assemble them on Sabbath days for the reception of religious instruction or that such instruction would have been unattended by worship It may be said that this amounts to no more than a presumption But if so it is a powerful presumption and is strongly confirmed by other considerations such as those that follow

7 Under every preceding dispensation the sanctity of the Sabbath had been a fundamental part of the revealed religion the synagogue worship goes back possibly to the captivity in Egypt certainly to the captivity in BabylonmdashBreckinridgersquos Subjec Theology p 530

24

Fourthly The Israelites were commanded to proclaim the incoming of the Sabbaths and the new moons by the blowing of trumpets That these seasons were observed with the solemn worship of assemblies is rendered almost certain by the passage in 2 Kings chapter 4 in which it is intimated that on those occasions the prophets were accustomed to hold meetings for instruction and worship The Shunammite whose son had been restored to life by Elisha having lost the child by death proposed to her husband to provide her with the necessaries for a journey to the prophet at Mount Carmel His reply was Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day It is neither new moon nor Sabbath The answer cannot be understood except upon the supposition here contended formdashnamely that the Sabbaths and new moons were seasons of gathering for instruction and worship and it is certain that Carmel was not Jerusalem and that weekly Sabbaths and the beginnings of months did not occur only three times a year

Fifthly In Psalm 748 the Psalmist in view of the devastation of the country by its enemies thus laments They said in their hearts Let us destroy them together they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land It is not necessary to suppose that the buildings here rendered synagogues exactly corresponded with those erected for worship after the return from the Babylonish captivity but they were places for worship8 Possibly they were as Prideaux and others suggest uncovered places of worship proseuchae but they were buildings else how could they have been burned And that they were not the halls adjoining the temple as some conjecture is proved by the statement that they were throughout the land All the synagogues of God in the land Were the temple buildings ubiquitous In this exposition not a few eminent commentators agree Dr McCurdy in Langersquos Commentary on the place says that these buildings were places of meeting in different parts of the land Calvin remarks I readily take the Hebrew moadim in the sense of synagogues because he says all the sanctuaries and speaks expressly of the whole land Adam Clarke observes The word moadey which we translate synagogues may be taken in a more general sense and mean any places where religious assemblies were held and that such places and assemblies did exist long before the Babylonish captivity is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture9

Dr Plumptre in the article on synagogues in Smithrsquos Dictionary of the Bible citing Vitringa On the Synagogue (pp 271 ff) says Jewish writers have claimed for their synagogues a very remote antiquity In well-nigh every place where the phrase before the Lord appears they recognize in it a known sanctuary a fixed place of meeting and therefore a synagogue This

8 See Hornersquos Introduction vol ii p 102 for a confirmation of this view It is there shown to have been advocated by Josephus and Philo and also by Grotius Ernesti Whitby Doddridge and Lardner 9 George Gillespie says After the tribes were settled in the land of promise synagogues were built in the case of an urgent necessity because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place that God had chosen that his name might dwell there Eng Pop Cerem p 116

25

view is taken in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan On the one hand says Dr Plumptre it is probable that if new moons and Sabbaths were observed at all [it was shown above that they were] they must have been attended by some celebration apart from as well as at the tabernacle or the temple On the other so far as we find traces of such local worship it seems to have fallen too readily into a fetich religion sacrifices to ephods and teraphim in groves and on high places offering nothing but a contrast to the lsquoreasonable servicersquo the prayers psalms instruction in the law of the later synagogue This to some extent not universally is lamentably true but the abuse proves the legitimate use of these stated seasons and places of public worship separately from the tabernacle and temple services

The gatherings of the elders during the exile for instruction by the prophet which are repeatedly mentioned in Ezekiel infer that the practice of holding assemblies for worship and the hearing of the law antedated the captivity The exiles carried the custom with them The words in Ezek 1115 16 seem to imply that God manifested his gracious presence in these meetings of his people as in little sanctuaries somewhat as in former and better times he had done at the greater sanctuaries in their native land This view is supported remarks the learned author who has been quoted by the LXX the Vulgate and the Authorized Version It is confirmed by the general consensus of Jewish interpreters

If these arguments have availed to prove that the people of Israel were accustomed to hold stated meetings for worship apart from the services of the tabernacle and the temple the well-ascertained practice of the post-exilian synagogues clearly establishes the absence of instrumental music from those weekly assemblies For had that kind of music been employed in those meetings it would inevitably have been continued in the synagogue-worship Every conceivable consideration would have opposed its eliminationmdashthe powerful force of long-continued precedents the prescriptive usages of the past hallowed by sacred associations the conservative sentiment which resists a revolutionary innovation and more than all the demands of human taste and the requirements of an acknowledged artistic standard But it is certain that no instrumental music was used in the worship of the later synagogue The argument is well-nigh irresistible

If it be contended that instrumental music which had previously existed was purged out of the regular worship of the Jews by the post-exilian reformation the question at issue is given up For if the Jews reformed the worship of the church by abandoning instrumental music much more should it have been discarded at the greater reformation inaugurated by Christianity Otherwise it would be conceded that the Christian Church was less pure in its worship less thoroughly reformed than was the Jewish Church in its later and better state

26

It has thus been shown that the essential parts of divine worship were maintained by the people of God in their ordinary Sabbath-day worship during the Jewish dispensation and it is the purpose of this discussion as it shall be developed to evince the fact that only these essential elements of worship passed over into the Christian dispensation They are permanent and like the covenant of grace in its generic and essential features as contradistinguished to the specific and accidental were designed to endure unchanged through all dispensations

(2) The second kind of elements of worship in the Mosaic economy was the Specific or Accidental which was Typical and Symbolical and as such temporary in its nature10 Warburton says that types and symbols are generically the same in that they are both representations but they are specifically different in that the type represents something future the symbol something past or present Hence he regarded the sacraments of the New Testament as symbols Thornwell observes that they differ from each other in the circumstance that types teach by analogy and symbols by expressive signs Without pausing to discuss the nature of the specific differences between them or to consider the question whether some of the elements in the Jewish ritual service were not at the same time both typical and symbolical I proceed to show that the types of the temple-worship did not as is too often carelessly assumed have exclusive reference to the sacrifice of Christ but that some of them represented beforehand the effects to be produced in the New Testament dispensation by the Holy Ghost and I will then attempt further to show that the instrumental music of the temple-worship fell into the latter class and therefore as having fulfilled its typical and temporary office passed away and vanished upon the introduction of the Christian economy But before these points are developed it is requisite that a few things be premised

In the first place no element in the synagogue-worship was typical and temporary This is too evident to require argument The reading and exposition of the divine Word hortatory addresses the singing of psalms and the contribution of alms are elements of worship which cannot be regarded as types foreshadowing substantial realities to come They belong to the class essential and permanent

In the second place the essential and permanent elements of worship as fundamental to all public religious service entered of course into the temple-worship In this respect there was no difference between the worship of the temple and that of the synagogue

10 Let it be observed that in making this distinction between essential and accidental elements of worship by the accidental are meant elements divinely commanded With the Reformed and Puritan divines I utterly repudiate the distinction as used by Prelatists to justify such accidental elements as human wisdom or church authority adds without divine warrant to the essential elements of worship

27

In the third place whatever element of worship was absent from the synagogue and present in the temple was typical or symbolical in its character Having in common what was essential and permanent the specific difference between them lay in the possession by one of the accidental and temporary and the non-possession by the other of the same Now the only elements falling into this latter class were the typical and symbolical These were embraced in the service of the temple and excluded from that of the synagogue Consequently as instrumental music was not included in the worship of the synagogue but was in that of the temple it must be regarded as having been either typical or symbolical Symbolical it cannot be considered it must therefore have been typical If so the necessity is recognized of attempting in the progress of this discussion to show of what it was typical

In the fourth place some of the elements of the temple-service were directly and solely typical of Christ especially as a priest and as the atoning sacrifice to be offered for sin Others were typical only of the Holy Ghost and still others were typical at one and the same time both of Christ and the Holy Spirit To use thc technically accurate language of theology the impetration or acquisition of salvation is attributed to Christ the application of it to the Holy Spirit But the grace which applies the benefits secured by the work of Christ is closely related to the work by which they were acquired Indeed it is itself acquired by the merit and intercession of the Redeemer They therefore suppose and implicate each other Consequently some of the types have a double reference to both When they immediately represent the Holy Spirit they at the same time mediately represent Christ Some of the positions taken in these preliminary remarks may be justly regarded and carried along with the discussion as assumptions demanding no proof and others will be substantiated as the argument proceeds

First The offices and work of the Holy Spirit were as clearly and definitely predicted and promised in the Old Testament Scriptures as were those of Christ The truth is that they cannot possibly be disjoined Neither would be operative to salvation without the other The whole Old Testament revelation so far as it was evangelical bore a twofold reference to the blood and the water to the meritorious acquisition of salvation by the righteousness and atoning death of Christ and its efficacious application by the grace of the Holy Ghost In the conception of redemption which we find everywhere in the Bible justification and sanctification are never dissociated They are ever represented as the complementary and equally necessary factors of one whole and complete salvation This is the very genius of the gospel as well before as after the death of the Son of God As it was proclaimed to our first parents revealed to Abel Enoch and Noah and as the apostle expressly testifies preached before to Abraham it was essentially promissory in its nature The same promissory character was still more fully disclosed in the features of the Mosaic dispensation in the Psalms and Prophets and as I hope to show in the typical rites and ceremonies of the temple-service That the person and offices

28

of the Holy Spirit were distinctly known to believers under the old dispensation is proved by utterances in the Psalms a book which represents the experience of Godrsquos true people in every condition of their history In the 51st Psalm we have the prayers Take not thy Holy Spirit from me Uphold me with thy free Spirit and in the 143rd Thy Spirit is good lead me to the land of uprightness Isaiah (chap 6310) says They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit which words as they were spoken of the house of Israel suppose that they knew or ought to have known the Holy Spirit as their guide It may be added that the sacred historians of the Old Testament over and over again assert with reference to the heroic worthies of that dispensation that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them All this goes to show that the promises which related to the work of the Holy Spirit at a future period of the churchrsquos development were not unintelligible by those to whom they were delivered

Let us cite some of those declarations which point to the work of the Spirit in the new dispensation Isa 3215-17 After describing the desolation that would be visited upon the land of Israel the prophet says Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever Isa 421 Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Isa 443 4 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water courses Isa 5919 20 21 So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seedrsquos seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever This prophecy in regard to the Spirit resisting a flood of enemies is referred by the Rabbins to the coming of the Messiah Ezek 3625-27 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them Ezek 3713 14 And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves O my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live and I shall place you in your own land then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it saith the Lord Joel

29

228 29 And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit For the reference of this glorious promise to New Testament times we have the inspired testimony of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost when it was measurably but remarkably fulfilled In close connection with the promise that a fountain shall be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness Zechariah utters also the promise 1210 And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications It matters little whether or not with some we take the word spirit here to indicate a disposition That disposition can be produced only by the Holy Spirit The apostle Paul it deserves to be considered terms the Spirit that holy Spirit of promise Eph 113 and in Gal 313 14 he speaks very explicitly about this matter Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith How closely does he couple the atoning work of Christ and the applying work of the Spirit And how clearly does he enounce the fact that the Spirit as well as Christ was promised in the ancient Scriptures and the early revelations made to the people of God

Secondly The offices of the Holy Ghost together with their saving and joy-imparting effects were typified as well as the priestly work and expiatory death of Christ in the services which were peculiar to the temple In view of what has been shown concerning the clearness and fulness with which the work of the Spirit in New Testament times is announced in the prophetical writings we would be prepared to find this true upon an examination of the temple types nor will we be disappointed by such an investigation Those types as well as the prophecies proclaimed the gospel They powerfully preached the whole salvation of the gospelmdashthe blood and the water justification and sanctification How could it be otherwise As God intended by these typical elements to represent as by object-lessons the scheme of redemption to his ancient people who lived before its actual achievement is it reasonable to suppose that he would have furnished an imperfect and inadequate pre-figuration of its essential parts Would he have omitted all instruction beforehand in regard to the mode of its application It is difficult to conceive how any theologian can fail to see the obvious foreshadowing in the temple furniture and service of the grace and work of the ever-blessed Spirit I shall select for comment only those elements which appear with the greatest clearness to typify the offices of the Holy Spirit

The Washing with Water Why was water employed as a type if not to signify what the New Testament Scriptures so unmistakably characterize under that figure Except a man said the

30

Lord Jesus be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 35) The preposition here is omitted before the Spirit in the original and the words may well be rendered of water even the Spirit At least this must be the meaning in the judgment of any one who would not co-ordinate external water with the almighty grace of the Holy Ghost in the new creation of the soul And to talk of onersquos being spiritually born in part of an outward symbol is to speak unintelligibly Paul several times uses washing and water to signify cleansing by the Holy Spirit Eph 526 That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the washing of water by the word I Cor 611 And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Tit 35 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and [or even the] renewing of the Holy Ghost John emphasizes the issue of water and blood from the side of Jesus on the cross and declares This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth And there are three that bear witness in earth the Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one (John 2034 I John 56 8) The Spirit bears witness both to justification and sanctification It is he who sanctifies and he who bears witness with his own work in the soul The analogy then between the type and the anti-type as to the offices respectively discharged leads to the conclusion that the lavers and ablutions of the temple typified the grace of the Holy Spirit This view is far from being singular It has the support of the illustrious Lightfoot The end of it [the laver] was he says to wash the hands and feet of the priests but the most ultimate end was to signify the washing and purifying by the Spirit of grace which is so oft called water in the Scripture And so the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice and the washing in the water of the laver did read the two great divinity lectures of washing by the blood of Christ from guilt and by the grace of God from filthiness and pollution11 This witness is true and his learning and piety render it superfluous to cite the testimony of others to the same purpose

The Anointing Oil Is it not clear from Scripture that this typified the Holy Spirit Under the Old Testament economy priests prophets and kings were anointed Did the anointing oil of the temple signify that Christ would anoint himself or rather did it not prefigure his anointing by the Holy Ghost He is the Christ Godrsquos anointed One and the holy Unction was the Spirit of wisdom power and grace Acts 1038 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power This direct testimony is sufficient The anointing oil of the temple discharged the typical office of prefiguring the holy Unction with which Jesus was anointed and who coming from him upon all his people teacheth them all things (1 John 227) This view also is sustained by the authority of the distinguished scholar who has already been cited The

11 Works Vol ix p 419 London 1823 Fairbairn takes substantially the same view Typology of Scripture Vol ii pp 212 213 See also MrsquoEwen Types Bk iii sect 3

3

PREFACE

The following treatise owes its origin to a desire expressed by members of the last Senior Class in Columbia Theological Seminary to hear a discussion of the question whether instrumental music may be legitimately used in the public worship of the Church Possessed of deep convictions on that subject the writer could not refuse compliance with such a request and accordingly delivered a course of lectures to the class A dear Christian friend who heard one of these lectures preached as a sermon suggested the propriety of their being published and being aware that the writer was not encumbered with a superfluity of this worldrsquos goods generously tendered the means to render the suggestion practical Although cautioned that she might make a useless pecuniary sacrifice as the current of the Churchrsquos views is now set in a direction opposed to the doctrine of the treatise she insisted upon executing her intention on the ground that she would contribute to erect a testimony to the truth Hence the appearance of this little book before the public

It will no doubt be said that the attempt to prove the unjustifiable employment of instrumental music in the public worship of the Church is schismatical since the practice is now well-nigh universal that it is trivial inasmuch as it concerns a mere circumstantial in the services of religion and that it is useless as the tendency which is resisted is invincible and is destined to triumph throughout Protestant Christendom To all this one answer alone is offered and it is sufficient namely that the attempt is grounded in truth It involves a contest for a mighty and all-comprehending principle by opposing one of the special forms in which it is now commonly transcended and violated It is that principle emphasized in the following remarks as scriptural and regulative that lends importance to the discussion and redeems it from the reproach of being narrow and trifling

The argument is commended to the consideration of any of Godrsquos people into whose hands it may fall but it is especially addressed to Presbyterians to whose venerable standards as well as directly to the Scriptures the appeal for proof is taken They are entreated to read it and to render judgment according to the evidence submitted May that Almighty Spirit whose illumination our divine Lord and Saviour promised to his followers guide each reader to the truth

COLUMBIA SC

4

THE QUESTION STATED

In the discussion of the question Whether the use of instrumental music in the worship of the church is permissible or not it must be premised

First that the question is not in regard to private or family worship or to that of social gatherings which are not ecclesiastical in their nature nor with reference to the utility or tastefulness of instrumental music nor in relation to the abuse to which it may be liable but

Secondly the question is precisely Is the use of instrumental music in the public worship of the church justifiable The design of this discussion is with the help of the divine Spirit to prove the negative

5

I

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE

Attention at the outset is invoked to the considerations which serve to establish the following controlling principle A divine warrant is necessary for every element of doctrine government and worship in the church that is whatsoever in these spheres is not commanded in the Scriptures either expressly or by good and necessary consequence from their statements is forbidden

1 This principle is deducible by logical inference from the great truthmdashconfessed by Protestantsmdashthat the Scriptures are an infallible rule of faith and practice and therefore supreme perfect and sufficient for all the needs of the Church All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works This truth operates positively to the inclusion of everything in the doctrine government and worship of the church which is commanded explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and negatively to the exclusion of everything which is not so commanded

2 This principle of the necessity of a divine warrant for everything in the faith and practice of the church is proved by didactic statements of Scripture

Num 1539 40 Remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes after which ye use to go a whoring that ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your God Ex 2540 And look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount Heb 85 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle for See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount Deut 42 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish aught from it that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you Deut 1232 What thing soever I command you observe to do it thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it Prov 305 6 Every word of God is pure he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him Add thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar Isa 820 To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Dan 244 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people Matt 156 Thus have

6

ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition Matt 2819 20 Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Col 220-23 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances (touch not taste not handle not which are all to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh 2 Tim 316 17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works Rev 2218 19 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and out of the things which are written in this book

These solemn statements and awful warnings teach us the lesson that to introduce any devices and inventions of our own into the doctrine government or worship of the church is to add to the words of God and to fail in maintaining the principles and truths or in complying with the institutions and ordinances delivered to us in the Scriptures is to take away from the words of God The Romanists for example who hold the doctrine of transubstantiation and observe the sacrifice of the mass add to Godrsquos words and the Quakers who maintain the co-ordinate authority of immediate revelations of new original truth with the inspired Oracles and neglect the observance of the sacraments both add to and take away from them And in like manner those who import instrumental music into the ordained worship of the New Testament Church transcend the warrant of Scripture and add to the words which Christ our Lord has commanded

3 There are concrete instances recorded in the Scriptures which graphically illustrate the same great principle

(1) Gen 4 Cain and his offering The brothers Cain and Abel had been in childhood beyond all doubt instructed by their parents in the knowledge of the first promise of redemption to be accomplished by atonement They had we have every reason to believe often seen their father offering animal sacrifices in the worship of God To this mode of worship they had been accustomed Cain the type of rationalists and fabricators of rites and ceremonies in the house of the Lord consulted his own wisdom and taste and ventured to offer in Godrsquos worship the fruit of the groundmdashan un-bloody sacrifice while Abel conforming to the appointments and prescribed usages in which he had been trained expressed his faith and obedience by offering a

7

lamb Abelrsquos worship was accepted and Cainrsquos rejected And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect Thus in the immediate family of Adam we behold a signal and typical instance of self-assertion and disregard of divine prescriptions in the matter of worship This was swiftly followed by Godrsquos disapprobation and then came the development of sin in the atrocious crime of fratricide and the banishment of the murderer from the communion of his family and the presence of his God

(2) Lev 101-3 Nadab and Abihu And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not1 And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Then Moses said unto Aaron This is it that the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified And Aaron held his peace These young men as the sons of Israelrsquos high priest were legitimately employed in discharging the appointed functions of the sacerdotal office But they presumed to add to Godrsquos commandments Exercising their own will in regard to the mode of his worship they did that which he did not command them and they were instantly killed for their wicked temerity

(3) Num 16 Korah Dathan and Abiram God had consecrated those descendants of Levi who sprang from Aaron to the priesthood while the remaining descendants of Levi were set apart to other offices pertaining to the service of the tabernacle Korah was a Levite but not a son of Aaron Dathan and Abiram were not even Levites but appear to have descended from Reuben When therefore these men asserting the claim that the whole congregation were entitled to rank with Moses and Aaron ventured to assume to themselves functions which God had restricted to a certain class they were overtaken by the swift indignation of Jehovah and perished in an awful manner The ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods They and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the congregation

(4) Num 20 Moses smiting the rock at Kadesh When on a previous occasion the Israelites were suffering from thirst God commanded Moses to smite the rock at Horeb This he did and water gushed forth abundantly The apostle Paul tells us that that rock typified Christ The typical teaching furnished by Moses then was that from the one death of Christ under the smiting of the law the grace of the Holy Ghost should proceed to satisfy the thirst of the soul

1 That is which he did not command them

8

Christ was to be smitten unto death only once Now again at Kadesh the Israelites suffer for want of water God commands Moses to speak unto the rock To this explicit command he rashly ventured to add He spoke to the people instead of the rock and he smote the rock and smote it twice He used his own judgment asserted his own will and taught the people falsely For this sin he and Aaron who concurred with him in its commission were excluded from entrance into the promised land And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother and speak ye to the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth his water and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock and he said unto them Hear now ye rebels must we fetch you water out of this rock And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them

We have here an inexpressibly affecting instance of the sin and folly of adding human inventions to the ordinances of Godrsquos appointment of the dreadful results that may follow from what men may conceive slight departures from obedience to the commands of God Not to speak of Aaron the accomplished orator the venerable saint the first anointed high priest of his people this incomparable man Moses in whom were blended all natural gifts and supernatural graces the deliverer the legislator the historian the poet the judge and the commander of Israel after having brought them out of Egypt conducted them through the parted waters of the Red Sea mediated between them and God amidst the terrors of Sinai led them through the horrors of the waste and howling desertmdashthis glorious man now in sight of the Jordan which like a thread separated them from the long-sought long-coveted goal of their hearts is doomed for one addition to Godrsquos command which no doubt seemed to him but a slight deviation from his instructions to die short of the promised land

(5) I Sam 13 Saul offering a burnt-offering at Gilgal The king had no command to officiate as priest Saul added to Godrsquos command and performed a function for which he had no authority The circumstances seemed to him to justify the act But he gained the divine disapprobation and lost his kingdom for the blunder As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling And he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him And Saul said Bring hither a burnt-offering to me and peace-offerings And he offered the burnt-offering And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-

9

offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him And Samuel said What hast thou done And Saul said Because I saw that the people were scattered from me and that thou camest not within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash therefore said I The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal and I have not made supplication unto the Lord I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt-offering And Samuel said to Saul Thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee

(6) I Chron 137 8 1511-15 Uzza and the ark and Davidrsquos subsequent obedience The Levites or more particularly the Kohathites were expressly commanded to bear the ark The manner of bearing it was also commanded Rings were appended through which staves were run These poles covered with gold were to be supported on the shoulders of the bearers They were forbidden to touch the ark upon pain of death After that the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die Such was Godrsquos command In transporting it from the house of Abinadab David infringed the divine command by directing the ark to be borne on a cart drawn by oxen Then when the animals stumbled Uzza with the intention of saving the ark from falling touched it with his hand He was instantly killed for his pious disobedience And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart And David and all Israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumbled And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God The offence was the more inexcusable because the staves were never detached from the ark and it is not at all likely that the Philistines who had been subjected to so severe a treatment while they had it in their possession had ventured to steal them And it deserves consideration that those heathen had not been killed for handling the ark while for doing the same thing Godrsquos people who should have known better were taught an awful lesson

The magnificent demonstration suffered a disastrous arrest and the king of Israel sobered by the warning he had received returned home to do what he ought to have done beforemdashto study the law of God Having accomplished this neglected office he makes a second attempt to remove the sacred symbol of Godrsquos covenant to Jerusalem but in a different fashion from the

10

former Let us hear the record And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests and for the Levites for Uriel Asaiah and Joel Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab and said unto them Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it For because ye did it not at the first the Lord our God made a breach upon us for that we sought him not after the due order So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel And the children of the Levites bare the ark upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord It merits notice that when the ark was to be removed and instated in its place in the temple which was about to be dedicated Solomon caused the due order to be observed And all the elders of Israel came and the Levites took up the ark And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the congregation and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle these did the priests and the Levites bring up And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place2 The history of this matter enforces the impressive lesson that we are not at liberty to use our own judgment and to act without a divine warrant in regard to things of Godrsquos appointment

(7) 2 Chron 2616-21 King Uzziah officiating as a priest God had given no warrant to a king to act as priest and Uzziah arrogantly undertook without such warrant to discharge sacerdotal functions The consequences of his impiety are vividly depicted in the following record But when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him fourscore priests of the Lord that were valiant men and they withstood Uzziah the king and said unto him It appertaineth not unto thee Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for thou hast trespassed neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God Then Uzziah was wroth and had a censer in his hand to burn incense and while he was wroth with the priests the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked upon him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence yea himself hasted also to go out because the Lord had smitten him And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death and dwelt in a several house being a leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord

(8) 2 Chron 283-5 King Ahaz doubly offending as to function and place He performed priestly functions without a divine warrant and performed them in places which God had not appointed For this wicked self-assertion he was visited with divine vengeance Moreover he

2 2 Chron 5457

11

burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of them captives and brought them to Damascus And he was also delivered into the hands of the king of Israel who smote him with a great slaughter

(9) The jealousy of God for the principle of a divine warrant for everything in his worship is most conspicuously illustrated in New Testament times by the tremendous judgments which befell the Jewish people for perpetuating without such a warrant the typical ritual of the temple-service Until the great atoning sacrifice was offered they had a positive warrant from God for the observance of that order But when that sacrifice had been offered the veil of the temple had been rent in twain and the Holy Ghost had been copiously poured out at the inauguration of a new dispensation the positive warrant for the temple-worship was withdrawn This Stephen insisted on before the Council and the illustrious witness for Christ was murdered for his testimony He charged that when their fathers had no warrant to worship sacrificially except at the temple they had persisted in observing that worship elsewhere and now that God had withdrawn the warrant to worship at the temple they demanded the right to worship there Ye do always said the glorious servant of Jesus resist the Holy Ghost For this sin by which they endorsed their rejection of their Messiah and Saviour their church-state and national polity were demolished and they after the experience of an unparalleled tribulation were scattered to the four winds of heaven Have we not the evidence before us at this day

The mighty principle has thus been established by an appeal to the didactic statements of Godrsquos word and to special instances recorded in scriptural history that a divine warrant is required for everything in the faith and practice of the Church that whatsoever is not in the Scriptures commanded either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence is forbidden The special application of this principle to the worship of God as illustrated in the concrete examples which have been furnished cannot escape the least attentive observation God is seen manifesting a most vehement jealousy in protecting the purity of his worship Any attempt to assert the judgment the will the taste of man apart from the express warrant of his Word and to introduce into his worship human inventions devices and methods was overtaken by immediate retribution and rebuked by the thunderbolts of his wrath Nor need we wonder at this for the service which the creature professes to render to God reaches its highest and most formal expression in the worship which is offered him In this act the majesty of the Most High is directly confronted The worshipper presents himself face to face with the infinite Sovereign

12

of heaven and earth and assumes to lay at his feet the sincerest homage of the heart In the performance of such an act to violate divine appointments or transcend divine prescription to affirm the reason of a sinful creature against the wisdom the will of a sinful creature against the authority of God is deliberately to flaunt an insult in his face and to hurl an indignity against his throne What else could follow but the flash of divine indignation It is true that in the New Testament dispensation the same swift and visible arrest of this sin is not the ordinary rule But the patience and forbearance of God can constitute no justification of its commission Its punishment if it be not repented of is only deferred Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil while the delayed justice of God is gathering to itself indignation to burst forth like an overwhelming tempest in the dreadful day of wrath

The principle that has been emphasized is in direct opposition to that maintained by Romanists and Prelatists and I regret to say by lax Presbyterians that what is not forbidden in the Scriptures is permitted The Church of England in her twentieth article concedes to the church a power to decree rites and ceremonies with this limitation alone upon its exercise that it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to Godrsquos written word3 The principle of the discretionary power of the church in regard to things not commanded by Christ in his Word was the chief fountain from which flowed the gradually increasing tide of corruptions that swept the Latin church into apostasy from the gospel of Godrsquos grace And as surely as causes produce their appropriate effects and history repeats itself in obedience to that law any Protestant church which embodies that principle in its creed is destined sooner or later to experience a similar fate The same too may be affirmed of a church which formally rejects it and practically conforms to it The reason is plain The only bridle that checks the degenerating tendency of the churchmdasha tendency manifested in all agesmdashis the Word of God for the Spirit of grace Himself ordinarily operates only in connection with that Word If this

3 Some curious and remarkable statements have been made with reference to this article When in 1808 the question of the introduction of instrumental music into public worship was before the Presbytery of Glasgow the Rev Dr Begg father of the late Dr James Begg published a treatise on the Use of Organs in which the following statement is attributed to the Rev Alexander Hislop The Church of England has admitted into its articles this principle that it belongs to lsquothe churchrsquo of her own authority to lsquodecree rites and ceremoniesrsquo (Article 20 ) As a matter of historical fact this principle was never agreed to by the Convocation that adopted the Thirty-nine Articles this sentence being found neither in the first printed edition of the articles nor in the draft of them that passed the Convocation and which is still in existence with the autograph signatures of the members but it is believed to have been surreptitiously inserted by the hand of Queen Elizabeth herself who had much of the over-bearing spirit of her father Henry VIII and who as head of the church which the English constitution made her was determined to have a pompous worship under her ecclesiastical control In support of this statement reference is made to authorities in Presbyterian Review July 1843 The Use of Organs etc by James Begg DD (p 150) See also Bannermanrsquos Church of Christ Vol I p 339

13

restraint be discarded the downward lapse is sure The words of the great theologian John Owenmdashand the British Isles have produced no greatermdashare solemn and deserve to be seriously pondered The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God either as to matter or manner beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry of all the confusion blood persecution and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world

In view of such considerations as these confirmed as they are by the facts of all past history it is easy to see how irrelevant and baseless is the taunt flung by high churchmen ritualists and latitudinarians of every stripe against the maintainers of the opposite principle that they are narrow-minded bigots who take delight in insisting upon trivial details The truth is exactly the other way The principle upon which this cheap ridicule is cast is simple broad majestic It affirms only the things that God has commanded the institutions and ordinances that he has prescribed and besides this discharges only a negative office which sweeps away every trifling invention of manrsquos meretricious fancy It is not the supporters of this principle but their opponents who delight in insisting upon crossings genuflexions and bowings to the east upon vestments altars and candles upon organs and cornets and the dear antiphonies that so bewitch their prelates and their chapters with the goodly echo they make in fine upon all that finical trumpery which inherited from the woman clothed in scarlet marks the trend backward to the Rubicon and the seven-hilled mart of souls

But whatever others may think or do Presbyterians cannot forsake this principle without the guilt of defection from their own venerable standards and from the testimonies sealed by the blood of their fathers Among the principles that the Reformers extracted from the rubbish of corruption and held up to light again none were more comprehensive far-reaching and profoundly reforming than this It struck at the root of every false doctrine and practice and demanded the restoration of the true Germany has been infinitely the worse because of Lutherrsquos failure to apply it to the full Calvin enforced it more fully The great French Protestant Church with the exception of retaining a liturgical relic of popery gave it a grand application and France suffered an irreparable loss when she dragooned almost out of existence the body that maintained it John Knox stamped it upon the heart of the Scottish Church and it constituted the glory of the English Puritans Alas that it is pasting into decadence in the Presbyterian churches of England Scotland and America What remains but that those who still see it and cling to it as to something dearer than life itself should continue to utter however feebly however inoperatively their unchanging testimony to its truth It is the acropolis of the churchrsquos liberties the palladium of her purity That gone nothing will be left to hope but to strain its gaze towards the dawn of the millennial day Thenmdashwe are entitled to expectmdasha

14

more thorough-going and glorious reformation will be effected than any that has blessed the church and the world since the magnificent propagation of Christianity by the labors of the inspired apostles themselves

15

II

ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the Jewish dispensation God was pleased to proceed in accordance with the great principle which has been signalized in regard to the introduction of instrumental music into the public worship of his people He kept the ordering of this part of his formal and instituted worship in his own hands There is positive proof that it was never made an element of that worship except by his express command Without his warrant it was excluded only with it was it employed

1 Let us notice the operation of this principle with reference to the tabernacle-worship

Moses received the mode of constructing the tabernacle and the order of its worship by divine revelation See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount It will be admitted that the instructions thus divinely given descended to the most minute detailsmdashthe sort of fabrics and skins to be used and their diverse colors the pins the ouches and the taches the ablutions the vestments and the actions of the officiating priests and Levites the ingredients of the holy ointment and the incense the parts the arrangements the instruments of worshipmdashto everything connected with the tabernacle these specific directions referred Of course if God had intended instrumental music to be employed it would have been included in these particular directions the instruments would have been specified for its performance and regulations enjoined for its use

What now are the facts No directions are given respecting instruments of music Two instruments of sound are provided for but they were of such a character as to make it impracticable to use them ordinarily as accompaniments of the voice in singing The record is And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Make thee two trumpets of silver of a whole piece shalt thou make them that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly and for the journeying of the camps And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you thou shalt blow an alarm with the trumpets and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies Also in the days of your gladness and in your solemn days and in the beginnings of your months ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings that they may be to you for a memorial before your God I am the Lord your God The blowing of these trumpets as a signal for marching or for going to war had certainly nothing to do with worship neither did the call of the congregation to assemble belong to the performance of worship any more than

16

a church bell now the ringing of which ceases when the services begin There is nothing to show that the blowing of the trumpets on festival days and at the beginning of months over the offerings was accompanied by singing on the part of priests and Levites There is no mention of that fact and Jewish tradition opposes the supposition Moreover it is almost certain that the blowing of trumpets on such occasions was a representative act performed by the priests and that consequently it was not accompanied by the singing of the congregation It is true that there is one recorded exception (2 Chron 512 13) which occurred however when the tabernacle had given way to the temple At the dedication of the latter edifice the priests blew the trumpets at the same time that the Levites sang and played upon instruments of music so as to make one sound but it is evident that on that great occasion of rejoicing what was aimed at was not musical harmony but a powerful crash of jubilant sound We are shut up to the conclusion that there was nothing in the tabernacle-worship as ordered by Moses which could be justly characterized as instrumental music

This absence of instrumental music from the services of the tabernacle continued not only during the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert but after their entrance into the promised land throughout the protracted period of the Judges the reign of Saul and a part of Davidrsquos This is a noteworthy fact Although David was a lover of instrumental music and himself a performer upon the harp it was not until some time after his reign had begun that this order of things was changed and as we shall see changed by divine command Let us hear the scriptural record (1 Chron 231-6) So when David was old and full of days he made Solomon his son king over Israel And he gathered together all the princes of Israel with the priests and the Levites Now the Levites were numbered by the age of thirty years and upward and their number by their polls man by man was fifty and eight thousand of which twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and six thousand were officers and judges moreover four thousand were porters and four thousand praised the Lord with the instruments which I made said David to praise therewith And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi namely Gershon Kohath and Merari Now how did David come to make this alteration in the Mosaic order which had been established by divine revelation For the answer let us again consult the sacred record (1 Chron 2811-13 19) Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch and of the houses thereof and of the treasuries thereof and of the inner parlors thereof and of the place of the mercy-seat and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord and of all the chambers round about of the treasuries of the house of God and of the treasuries of the dedicated things also for the courses of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord All this said David the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me and all the works of this pattern 2 Chron 2925 26 And he [Solomon] set the Levites in the house of the Lord

17

with cymbals with psalteries and with harps according to the commandment of David and of Gad the kingrsquos seer and of Nathan the prophet for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets

In the light of these statements of Godrsquos Word several things are made evident which challenge our serious attention First instrumental music never was divinely warranted as an element in the tabernacle-worship until David received inspired instructions to introduce it as preparatory to the transition which was about to be effected to the more elaborate ritual of the temple Secondly when the temple was to be built and its order of worship to be instituted David received a divine revelation in regard to it just as Moses had concerning the tabernacle with its ordinances Thirdly this direct revelation to David was enforced upon Solomon and upon the priests and Levites by inspired communications touching the same subject from the prophets Gad and Nathan Fourthly instrumental music would not have been constituted an element in the temple-worship had not God expressly authorized it by his command The public worship of the tabernacle up to the time when it was to be merged into the temple had been a stranger to it and so great an innovation could have been accomplished only by divine authority Godrsquos positive enactment grounded the propriety of the change

Is it not clear that the great principle that whatsoever is not commanded by God either expressly or impliedly in relation to the public worship of his house is forbidden meets here a conspicuous illustration The bearing of all this upon the Christian church is as striking as it is obvious If under a dispensation dominantly characterized by external appointments instrumental music could not be introduced into the worship of Godrsquos sanctuary except in consequence of a warrant furnished by him how can a church existing under the far simpler and more spiritual dispensation of the gospel venture without such a warrant to incorporate it into its public services and that no such warrant can be pleaded will be made apparent as the argument expands

2 Against the conclusiveness of this argument it is objected that the Israelites were accustomed to use instrumental music at their option and that especially was this the case on occasions of public rejoicing when thanksgivings were by masses of the people rendered to God for signal benefits conferred by his delivering providence So far as the allegation concerns the employment of that kind of music in private or social life it is irrelevant to the scope of an argument which has reference explicitly and solely to its use in the public worship of Godrsquos house This will rule out many of the instances which are cited to prove the untenableness of the principle contended for in this discussion

There remains however another class of cases to which attention may be fairly directed cases in which public worship appeared to be offered Into this class fall the instances of Miriamrsquos

18

playing upon the timbrel at the Red Sea the welcome of Saul and David by the women with singing dancing and instrumental music the like instance of Jephthahrsquos daughter the accompanying of the ark by David and Israel with bands of music and the minstrelsy of the prophets to whom Saul joined himself In reply to the objection based upon these instances the general ground may be taken that they are examples not of church-worship but of public rejoicing on the part of the nation or of communities with the exception of the prophetsrsquo minstrelsy which will be separately considered Some special remarks are however pertinent in regard to them

In the first place it will be noticed from the account of the triumphant rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea that the men sang only Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake saying etc What can be gathered from this simple singing of the males of Israel in praise of God for their great deliverance in favor of instrumental music in worship it is rather difficult to see

In the second place it was Miriam and the women who used instruments of music on the occasion And Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances The argument of the objector proves too much If from this instance the legitimacy of employing instrumental music in the public worship of the Jewish Church is to be inferred so may the legitimacy of its use by women in that worship But the history of the appointments of that worship furnishes no evidence of the tenableness of the latter inference The contrary is proved Women were excluded from any prominent at least any official function in the services of Godrsquos house in the Mosaic dispensation4 It was the males of Israel who were commanded to repair to Jerusalem on those festival occasions when bursts of instrumental music were united with the singing of praise in the temple-worship Indeed so far from the women taking an active part in that worship it would seem to have been limited as to its outward expression in sounds to the priests and Levites who as the divinely appointed official representatives of the congregation sang and played on instruments of music The argument might do for a modern advocate of womanrsquos rights but it will hardly answer for the Jewish dispensation It is as barren of results as was Miriam herself of issue

In the third place it again proves too much if the word rendered dances is correctly translated It would prove that religious dancing was an element in the prescribed worship of Godrsquos people The consequence refutes the argument

4 The daughters of Heman mentioned I Chron 255 were not singers and performers on instruments in the public worship for they are not included in the enumeration of the courses which follows

19

But to return to the general position that the instances mentioned in the objection were those not of ecclesiastical worship but of national rejoicing Against this general view it is urged in reply that an unwarrantable distinction is made between the Jewish church and the Jewish nation This raises the question whether such a distinction is valid Were state and church identical Did the members of the state act as members of the church Did the members of the church act as members of the state It may be admitted that in the mainmdashthat is with certain exceptions such as the proselytes of righteousness for examplemdashthe nation and the church were numerically coincident Ordinarilymdashthat is with certain exceptionsmdashthe rite of circumcision designated one alike a member of the state and of the church But that these two institutes were identical that the functions of the one were the functions of the other considered as organisms is to my mind not susceptible of proof It would be unsuitable here to enter at large into this question but it lies across the track of the argument in hand and a brief consideration of it as it is not illogically interjected will not be regarded as impertinent The question is acutely and ably discussed by that great man George Gillespie in his Aaronrsquos Rod Blossoming I shall give a mere outline the bare heads of a part of his argument to prove that the Jewish state and church although in the main the same materially that is as to personal constituents were organically and formally distinct institutes and I do this the more readily because Gillespiersquos valuable work is now rare and difficult of access They are distinct

(1) In respect of laws The judicial law was given to the state the ceremonial law to the church

(2) In respect of acts The members of the state did not as such worship God and offer sacrifices in the temple etc and the members of the church did not as such inflict physical punishments

(3) In respect of controversies to be decided Some concerned the Lordrsquos matters and were to be ecclesiastically settled some the kingrsquos matters and were to be civilly decided

(4) In respect of officers The priests and Levites were church officers magistrates and judges were state officers

(5) In respect of continuance The Romans took away the Jewish state and civil government but the Jewish church and ecclesiastical government remained

(6) In respect of variation The constitution and government of the Jewish state underwent serious changes under different civil administrations but we cannot say that the church was remodelled as often as the state was

20

(7) In respect of members There were proselytes the proselytes of righteousness who were admitted to membership in the church with its privileges but were not entitled to the privileges of members of the state

(8) In respect of government In the prosecution of this argument to prove the distinctness of the Jewish church and state Gillespie takes the ground that there were two Sanhedrims one civil the other ecclesiastical and he cites as maintaining that view Zepperus Junius Piscator Wolfius Gerhard Godwin Bucerus Walaeus Pelargus Sopingius the Dutch Annotators Bertramus Apollonius Strigelius the professors of Groningen Reynolds Paget LrsquoEmpereur and Elias cited by Buxtorf

[This special argument Gillespie presses elaborately and acutely by more than a dozen separate considerations derived from Scripture But as the question has been ably debated on both sides by men learned in Jewish affairs no positive opinion is here expressed as to the conclusiveness of the proofs presented by the great Scotch divine]

(9) There was an ecclesiastical excommunication among the Jews different from the penalties inflicted by the criminal law of the state

Such are the ribs merely of a powerful argument in favor of the distinction between the Jewish state and church by one who had the reputation of being one of the astutest debaters in the Westminster Assembly of Divines That distinguished scholar Dr Joseph Addison Alexander expresses the opinion in his Primitive Church Offices that the Jewish state and church were one organization with two distinct classes of functions one civil and another ecclesiastical But Gillespie shows that the numerical components of some of the courts were different they consisted of different men Take either view however and the ends of this argument are met more conclusively upon Gillespiersquos it is true but conclusively upon both What the state as such did the church as such did not do and vice versa And if this be so it follows that the same thing holds in regard to the people What they did in a national capacity they did not necessarily do in an ecclesiastical When then Miriam and the women with her the women who welcomed Saul and David returning home in triumph the daughter of Jephthah celebrating her fatherrsquos victory and the mass of people who accompanied the ark in its transportation to Jerusalem played on instruments of music they were commemorating national events with appropriate national rejoicings They were not acting worship as the church or as the members of the church

In regard to the company of prophets whom Saul joined it is sufficient to say that they were in part the poets and minstrels of the nation and that as the incident occurred during the existence of the tabernacle the incontestable proof which has been already exhibited that

21

instrumental music such as that which they employed was not allowed in its worship is enough to sweep all ground from beneath the objection now considered against the operation of the great principle of limitation upon church worship for which I have contended This holds good whether or not the view which has been presented as to these prophets be correct Their playing on instruments had nothing to do with the public formally instituted worship of the house of the Lord

It has thus been shown by a direct appeal to the Scriptures that during all the protracted period in which the tabernacle was Godrsquos sanctuary the great principle was enforced that only what God commands is permitted and what he does not command is forbidden in the public worship of his house Moses with all his wisdom the Judges with all their intrepidity Saul with all his waywardness and self-will David the sweet Psalmist of Israel with all his skill in the musical art did not any of them venture to violate that principle and introduce into the public services of Godrsquos house the devices of their imagination or the inventions of their taste The lesson is certainly impressive coming as it does from that distant age and it behooves those who live in a dispensation this side of the cross of Calvary and the day of Pentecost to show cause beyond a peradventure why they are discharged from the duty of obedience to the divine will in this vitally important matter

3 The next step in this argument is to show that no musical instruments were used in the synagogue-worship

As this is almost universally admitted no extended argument is needed to prove it It might have been expected from the jealousy which God had always peculiarly manifested in enforcing the principle that without an express warrant from him nothing was to be introduced into the public worship of his people and especially from the facts already emphasized that no instruments of music were allowed to be employed in the tabernacle and that they were included in the service at the temple only in consequence of explicit divine instructions to that effect it might have been expected that instrumental music would not have been incorporated into the worship of the Jews on ordinary Sabbath days not embraced in the three national festivals This presumption is confirmed by the facts of the case

The writers who have most carefully investigated Jewish antiquities and have written learnedly and elaborately in regard to the synagogue concur in showing that its worship was destitute of instrumental music What singing there was and there was not much of it in proportion to the other elements of worship was plain and simple In his great work On the Ancient Synagogue

22

Vitringa shows5 that there were only two instruments of sound used in connection with the synagogue and that these were employed not in worship or along with it as an accompaniment but as publishing signalsmdashfirst for proclaiming the new year secondly for announcing the beginning of the Sabbath thirdly for publishing the sentence of excommunication and fourthly for heralding fasts These were their sole uses There were no sacrifices over which they were to be blown as in the tabernacle and temple And from the nature of the instruments it is plain that they could not have accompanied the voice in singing They were only of two kindsmdashtrumpets (tubae) and ramsrsquo horns or cornets (buccinae) The former were straight the latter curved Nor is it to be supposed that the cornet like the modern instrument of that name was susceptible of modulation and therefore of accompanying vocal melody It had but one note and was so easy to be blown that a child could sound it Further they were for the most part used not even in connection with the synagogue buildings but were blown from the roofs of houses so as to be heard at a distance Enough has been said to prove that no instrumental music entered into the services of the Jewish synagogue6

The elements of worship in the Mosaic dispensation were of two kinds

(1) The generic or essential Those observed in the synagogue were the reading and exposition of Godrsquos Word exhortation prayers accompanied with singing if the common recitation by the people of parts of the Psalms can be so characterized and the contribution of alms Without here raising the question whether synagogues had an existence prior to the Babylonian exile one would risk little in taking the ground that during all the time of the churchrsquos development in the past Godrsquos people had been accustomed to meet on Sabbath days for engagement in these essential parts of divine worship The patriarchal dispensation being left out of account in which however every sentiment of piety and reverence the original institution of the seventh day as one of rest and the acquaintance of the Israelites with the law of the Sabbath before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law render it highly probable that such a practice was maintained a few reasons will be intimated in favor of its maintenance during the period of the Jewish economy

First The fourth commandment made the sacred observance of every Sabbath day obligatory It is not reasonable to suppose that the law contemplated the merely individual and private keeping holy of the day

5 De Synag Vetere Lib I Pars i Chap 10 Lightfoot on Matt vi 2 See also Josephus Ant Jud Lib iii Chap 12 6 The orthodox Jews even to the present day [1888] oppose its use in the synagogue The writer knew a congregation in Charleston SC to be rent in twain in consequence of an attempt to introduce an organ

23

Secondly The Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness were accustomed to worship every Sabbath day in mass at the tabernacle It was accessible from every part of the encampment which was around it on every side The proof of this is given in Lev 233 Six days Shall work be done but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest an holy convocation The prescriptive usage of meeting for worship on every Sabbath was thus established during their forty yearsrsquo pilgrimage in the desert In all that time during which they held weekly assemblies let it also be observed they knew nothing of instrumental music It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that this habit ingrained into them in the early period of their national existence and consecrated by innumerable sacred and splendid associations would have ceased to be influential after their wanderings had ceased and they had been permanently located in the land of rest Such an innovation upon their customs could only have occurred in consequence either of a divine command enforcing the change or of a serious defection from their religious principles We know that neither of these causes operated to produce the supposed revolution in their habits of worship Upon their settlement in Canaan they were of course dispersed in consequence of their tribal distribution throughout the length and breadth of the country from Dan to Beersheba and as the tabernacle was necessarily at any particular time confined to one spot it was not accessible to congregations representing all Israel except upon the occasions of the prescribed national festivals What then were they doing on all the other Sabbaths of the year in their cities and towns villages and rural neighborhoods It cannot be supposed that on those Sabbaths they never met for worship7 This consideration is mightily enhanced by the fact that only the males of Israel were enjoined to attend the great annual festivals Were the women the mothers of Israel the trainers of children and youth left destitute of all public worship The supposition cannot be entertained Provision must have been made for their engagement in the stated public worship of their God

Thirdly The priests and Levites when not occupied in the discharge of their formal official duties at the temple were distributed through the land and there is evidence to show that they acted as teachers of schools Is it likely that ministers of religion would have educated the people in everything but the divine law or that they would have failed to assemble them on Sabbath days for the reception of religious instruction or that such instruction would have been unattended by worship It may be said that this amounts to no more than a presumption But if so it is a powerful presumption and is strongly confirmed by other considerations such as those that follow

7 Under every preceding dispensation the sanctity of the Sabbath had been a fundamental part of the revealed religion the synagogue worship goes back possibly to the captivity in Egypt certainly to the captivity in BabylonmdashBreckinridgersquos Subjec Theology p 530

24

Fourthly The Israelites were commanded to proclaim the incoming of the Sabbaths and the new moons by the blowing of trumpets That these seasons were observed with the solemn worship of assemblies is rendered almost certain by the passage in 2 Kings chapter 4 in which it is intimated that on those occasions the prophets were accustomed to hold meetings for instruction and worship The Shunammite whose son had been restored to life by Elisha having lost the child by death proposed to her husband to provide her with the necessaries for a journey to the prophet at Mount Carmel His reply was Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day It is neither new moon nor Sabbath The answer cannot be understood except upon the supposition here contended formdashnamely that the Sabbaths and new moons were seasons of gathering for instruction and worship and it is certain that Carmel was not Jerusalem and that weekly Sabbaths and the beginnings of months did not occur only three times a year

Fifthly In Psalm 748 the Psalmist in view of the devastation of the country by its enemies thus laments They said in their hearts Let us destroy them together they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land It is not necessary to suppose that the buildings here rendered synagogues exactly corresponded with those erected for worship after the return from the Babylonish captivity but they were places for worship8 Possibly they were as Prideaux and others suggest uncovered places of worship proseuchae but they were buildings else how could they have been burned And that they were not the halls adjoining the temple as some conjecture is proved by the statement that they were throughout the land All the synagogues of God in the land Were the temple buildings ubiquitous In this exposition not a few eminent commentators agree Dr McCurdy in Langersquos Commentary on the place says that these buildings were places of meeting in different parts of the land Calvin remarks I readily take the Hebrew moadim in the sense of synagogues because he says all the sanctuaries and speaks expressly of the whole land Adam Clarke observes The word moadey which we translate synagogues may be taken in a more general sense and mean any places where religious assemblies were held and that such places and assemblies did exist long before the Babylonish captivity is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture9

Dr Plumptre in the article on synagogues in Smithrsquos Dictionary of the Bible citing Vitringa On the Synagogue (pp 271 ff) says Jewish writers have claimed for their synagogues a very remote antiquity In well-nigh every place where the phrase before the Lord appears they recognize in it a known sanctuary a fixed place of meeting and therefore a synagogue This

8 See Hornersquos Introduction vol ii p 102 for a confirmation of this view It is there shown to have been advocated by Josephus and Philo and also by Grotius Ernesti Whitby Doddridge and Lardner 9 George Gillespie says After the tribes were settled in the land of promise synagogues were built in the case of an urgent necessity because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place that God had chosen that his name might dwell there Eng Pop Cerem p 116

25

view is taken in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan On the one hand says Dr Plumptre it is probable that if new moons and Sabbaths were observed at all [it was shown above that they were] they must have been attended by some celebration apart from as well as at the tabernacle or the temple On the other so far as we find traces of such local worship it seems to have fallen too readily into a fetich religion sacrifices to ephods and teraphim in groves and on high places offering nothing but a contrast to the lsquoreasonable servicersquo the prayers psalms instruction in the law of the later synagogue This to some extent not universally is lamentably true but the abuse proves the legitimate use of these stated seasons and places of public worship separately from the tabernacle and temple services

The gatherings of the elders during the exile for instruction by the prophet which are repeatedly mentioned in Ezekiel infer that the practice of holding assemblies for worship and the hearing of the law antedated the captivity The exiles carried the custom with them The words in Ezek 1115 16 seem to imply that God manifested his gracious presence in these meetings of his people as in little sanctuaries somewhat as in former and better times he had done at the greater sanctuaries in their native land This view is supported remarks the learned author who has been quoted by the LXX the Vulgate and the Authorized Version It is confirmed by the general consensus of Jewish interpreters

If these arguments have availed to prove that the people of Israel were accustomed to hold stated meetings for worship apart from the services of the tabernacle and the temple the well-ascertained practice of the post-exilian synagogues clearly establishes the absence of instrumental music from those weekly assemblies For had that kind of music been employed in those meetings it would inevitably have been continued in the synagogue-worship Every conceivable consideration would have opposed its eliminationmdashthe powerful force of long-continued precedents the prescriptive usages of the past hallowed by sacred associations the conservative sentiment which resists a revolutionary innovation and more than all the demands of human taste and the requirements of an acknowledged artistic standard But it is certain that no instrumental music was used in the worship of the later synagogue The argument is well-nigh irresistible

If it be contended that instrumental music which had previously existed was purged out of the regular worship of the Jews by the post-exilian reformation the question at issue is given up For if the Jews reformed the worship of the church by abandoning instrumental music much more should it have been discarded at the greater reformation inaugurated by Christianity Otherwise it would be conceded that the Christian Church was less pure in its worship less thoroughly reformed than was the Jewish Church in its later and better state

26

It has thus been shown that the essential parts of divine worship were maintained by the people of God in their ordinary Sabbath-day worship during the Jewish dispensation and it is the purpose of this discussion as it shall be developed to evince the fact that only these essential elements of worship passed over into the Christian dispensation They are permanent and like the covenant of grace in its generic and essential features as contradistinguished to the specific and accidental were designed to endure unchanged through all dispensations

(2) The second kind of elements of worship in the Mosaic economy was the Specific or Accidental which was Typical and Symbolical and as such temporary in its nature10 Warburton says that types and symbols are generically the same in that they are both representations but they are specifically different in that the type represents something future the symbol something past or present Hence he regarded the sacraments of the New Testament as symbols Thornwell observes that they differ from each other in the circumstance that types teach by analogy and symbols by expressive signs Without pausing to discuss the nature of the specific differences between them or to consider the question whether some of the elements in the Jewish ritual service were not at the same time both typical and symbolical I proceed to show that the types of the temple-worship did not as is too often carelessly assumed have exclusive reference to the sacrifice of Christ but that some of them represented beforehand the effects to be produced in the New Testament dispensation by the Holy Ghost and I will then attempt further to show that the instrumental music of the temple-worship fell into the latter class and therefore as having fulfilled its typical and temporary office passed away and vanished upon the introduction of the Christian economy But before these points are developed it is requisite that a few things be premised

In the first place no element in the synagogue-worship was typical and temporary This is too evident to require argument The reading and exposition of the divine Word hortatory addresses the singing of psalms and the contribution of alms are elements of worship which cannot be regarded as types foreshadowing substantial realities to come They belong to the class essential and permanent

In the second place the essential and permanent elements of worship as fundamental to all public religious service entered of course into the temple-worship In this respect there was no difference between the worship of the temple and that of the synagogue

10 Let it be observed that in making this distinction between essential and accidental elements of worship by the accidental are meant elements divinely commanded With the Reformed and Puritan divines I utterly repudiate the distinction as used by Prelatists to justify such accidental elements as human wisdom or church authority adds without divine warrant to the essential elements of worship

27

In the third place whatever element of worship was absent from the synagogue and present in the temple was typical or symbolical in its character Having in common what was essential and permanent the specific difference between them lay in the possession by one of the accidental and temporary and the non-possession by the other of the same Now the only elements falling into this latter class were the typical and symbolical These were embraced in the service of the temple and excluded from that of the synagogue Consequently as instrumental music was not included in the worship of the synagogue but was in that of the temple it must be regarded as having been either typical or symbolical Symbolical it cannot be considered it must therefore have been typical If so the necessity is recognized of attempting in the progress of this discussion to show of what it was typical

In the fourth place some of the elements of the temple-service were directly and solely typical of Christ especially as a priest and as the atoning sacrifice to be offered for sin Others were typical only of the Holy Ghost and still others were typical at one and the same time both of Christ and the Holy Spirit To use thc technically accurate language of theology the impetration or acquisition of salvation is attributed to Christ the application of it to the Holy Spirit But the grace which applies the benefits secured by the work of Christ is closely related to the work by which they were acquired Indeed it is itself acquired by the merit and intercession of the Redeemer They therefore suppose and implicate each other Consequently some of the types have a double reference to both When they immediately represent the Holy Spirit they at the same time mediately represent Christ Some of the positions taken in these preliminary remarks may be justly regarded and carried along with the discussion as assumptions demanding no proof and others will be substantiated as the argument proceeds

First The offices and work of the Holy Spirit were as clearly and definitely predicted and promised in the Old Testament Scriptures as were those of Christ The truth is that they cannot possibly be disjoined Neither would be operative to salvation without the other The whole Old Testament revelation so far as it was evangelical bore a twofold reference to the blood and the water to the meritorious acquisition of salvation by the righteousness and atoning death of Christ and its efficacious application by the grace of the Holy Ghost In the conception of redemption which we find everywhere in the Bible justification and sanctification are never dissociated They are ever represented as the complementary and equally necessary factors of one whole and complete salvation This is the very genius of the gospel as well before as after the death of the Son of God As it was proclaimed to our first parents revealed to Abel Enoch and Noah and as the apostle expressly testifies preached before to Abraham it was essentially promissory in its nature The same promissory character was still more fully disclosed in the features of the Mosaic dispensation in the Psalms and Prophets and as I hope to show in the typical rites and ceremonies of the temple-service That the person and offices

28

of the Holy Spirit were distinctly known to believers under the old dispensation is proved by utterances in the Psalms a book which represents the experience of Godrsquos true people in every condition of their history In the 51st Psalm we have the prayers Take not thy Holy Spirit from me Uphold me with thy free Spirit and in the 143rd Thy Spirit is good lead me to the land of uprightness Isaiah (chap 6310) says They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit which words as they were spoken of the house of Israel suppose that they knew or ought to have known the Holy Spirit as their guide It may be added that the sacred historians of the Old Testament over and over again assert with reference to the heroic worthies of that dispensation that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them All this goes to show that the promises which related to the work of the Holy Spirit at a future period of the churchrsquos development were not unintelligible by those to whom they were delivered

Let us cite some of those declarations which point to the work of the Spirit in the new dispensation Isa 3215-17 After describing the desolation that would be visited upon the land of Israel the prophet says Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever Isa 421 Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Isa 443 4 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water courses Isa 5919 20 21 So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seedrsquos seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever This prophecy in regard to the Spirit resisting a flood of enemies is referred by the Rabbins to the coming of the Messiah Ezek 3625-27 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them Ezek 3713 14 And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves O my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live and I shall place you in your own land then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it saith the Lord Joel

29

228 29 And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit For the reference of this glorious promise to New Testament times we have the inspired testimony of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost when it was measurably but remarkably fulfilled In close connection with the promise that a fountain shall be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness Zechariah utters also the promise 1210 And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications It matters little whether or not with some we take the word spirit here to indicate a disposition That disposition can be produced only by the Holy Spirit The apostle Paul it deserves to be considered terms the Spirit that holy Spirit of promise Eph 113 and in Gal 313 14 he speaks very explicitly about this matter Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith How closely does he couple the atoning work of Christ and the applying work of the Spirit And how clearly does he enounce the fact that the Spirit as well as Christ was promised in the ancient Scriptures and the early revelations made to the people of God

Secondly The offices of the Holy Ghost together with their saving and joy-imparting effects were typified as well as the priestly work and expiatory death of Christ in the services which were peculiar to the temple In view of what has been shown concerning the clearness and fulness with which the work of the Spirit in New Testament times is announced in the prophetical writings we would be prepared to find this true upon an examination of the temple types nor will we be disappointed by such an investigation Those types as well as the prophecies proclaimed the gospel They powerfully preached the whole salvation of the gospelmdashthe blood and the water justification and sanctification How could it be otherwise As God intended by these typical elements to represent as by object-lessons the scheme of redemption to his ancient people who lived before its actual achievement is it reasonable to suppose that he would have furnished an imperfect and inadequate pre-figuration of its essential parts Would he have omitted all instruction beforehand in regard to the mode of its application It is difficult to conceive how any theologian can fail to see the obvious foreshadowing in the temple furniture and service of the grace and work of the ever-blessed Spirit I shall select for comment only those elements which appear with the greatest clearness to typify the offices of the Holy Spirit

The Washing with Water Why was water employed as a type if not to signify what the New Testament Scriptures so unmistakably characterize under that figure Except a man said the

30

Lord Jesus be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 35) The preposition here is omitted before the Spirit in the original and the words may well be rendered of water even the Spirit At least this must be the meaning in the judgment of any one who would not co-ordinate external water with the almighty grace of the Holy Ghost in the new creation of the soul And to talk of onersquos being spiritually born in part of an outward symbol is to speak unintelligibly Paul several times uses washing and water to signify cleansing by the Holy Spirit Eph 526 That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the washing of water by the word I Cor 611 And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Tit 35 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and [or even the] renewing of the Holy Ghost John emphasizes the issue of water and blood from the side of Jesus on the cross and declares This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth And there are three that bear witness in earth the Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one (John 2034 I John 56 8) The Spirit bears witness both to justification and sanctification It is he who sanctifies and he who bears witness with his own work in the soul The analogy then between the type and the anti-type as to the offices respectively discharged leads to the conclusion that the lavers and ablutions of the temple typified the grace of the Holy Spirit This view is far from being singular It has the support of the illustrious Lightfoot The end of it [the laver] was he says to wash the hands and feet of the priests but the most ultimate end was to signify the washing and purifying by the Spirit of grace which is so oft called water in the Scripture And so the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice and the washing in the water of the laver did read the two great divinity lectures of washing by the blood of Christ from guilt and by the grace of God from filthiness and pollution11 This witness is true and his learning and piety render it superfluous to cite the testimony of others to the same purpose

The Anointing Oil Is it not clear from Scripture that this typified the Holy Spirit Under the Old Testament economy priests prophets and kings were anointed Did the anointing oil of the temple signify that Christ would anoint himself or rather did it not prefigure his anointing by the Holy Ghost He is the Christ Godrsquos anointed One and the holy Unction was the Spirit of wisdom power and grace Acts 1038 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power This direct testimony is sufficient The anointing oil of the temple discharged the typical office of prefiguring the holy Unction with which Jesus was anointed and who coming from him upon all his people teacheth them all things (1 John 227) This view also is sustained by the authority of the distinguished scholar who has already been cited The

11 Works Vol ix p 419 London 1823 Fairbairn takes substantially the same view Typology of Scripture Vol ii pp 212 213 See also MrsquoEwen Types Bk iii sect 3

4

THE QUESTION STATED

In the discussion of the question Whether the use of instrumental music in the worship of the church is permissible or not it must be premised

First that the question is not in regard to private or family worship or to that of social gatherings which are not ecclesiastical in their nature nor with reference to the utility or tastefulness of instrumental music nor in relation to the abuse to which it may be liable but

Secondly the question is precisely Is the use of instrumental music in the public worship of the church justifiable The design of this discussion is with the help of the divine Spirit to prove the negative

5

I

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE

Attention at the outset is invoked to the considerations which serve to establish the following controlling principle A divine warrant is necessary for every element of doctrine government and worship in the church that is whatsoever in these spheres is not commanded in the Scriptures either expressly or by good and necessary consequence from their statements is forbidden

1 This principle is deducible by logical inference from the great truthmdashconfessed by Protestantsmdashthat the Scriptures are an infallible rule of faith and practice and therefore supreme perfect and sufficient for all the needs of the Church All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works This truth operates positively to the inclusion of everything in the doctrine government and worship of the church which is commanded explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and negatively to the exclusion of everything which is not so commanded

2 This principle of the necessity of a divine warrant for everything in the faith and practice of the church is proved by didactic statements of Scripture

Num 1539 40 Remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes after which ye use to go a whoring that ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your God Ex 2540 And look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount Heb 85 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle for See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount Deut 42 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish aught from it that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you Deut 1232 What thing soever I command you observe to do it thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it Prov 305 6 Every word of God is pure he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him Add thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar Isa 820 To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Dan 244 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people Matt 156 Thus have

6

ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition Matt 2819 20 Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Col 220-23 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances (touch not taste not handle not which are all to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh 2 Tim 316 17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works Rev 2218 19 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and out of the things which are written in this book

These solemn statements and awful warnings teach us the lesson that to introduce any devices and inventions of our own into the doctrine government or worship of the church is to add to the words of God and to fail in maintaining the principles and truths or in complying with the institutions and ordinances delivered to us in the Scriptures is to take away from the words of God The Romanists for example who hold the doctrine of transubstantiation and observe the sacrifice of the mass add to Godrsquos words and the Quakers who maintain the co-ordinate authority of immediate revelations of new original truth with the inspired Oracles and neglect the observance of the sacraments both add to and take away from them And in like manner those who import instrumental music into the ordained worship of the New Testament Church transcend the warrant of Scripture and add to the words which Christ our Lord has commanded

3 There are concrete instances recorded in the Scriptures which graphically illustrate the same great principle

(1) Gen 4 Cain and his offering The brothers Cain and Abel had been in childhood beyond all doubt instructed by their parents in the knowledge of the first promise of redemption to be accomplished by atonement They had we have every reason to believe often seen their father offering animal sacrifices in the worship of God To this mode of worship they had been accustomed Cain the type of rationalists and fabricators of rites and ceremonies in the house of the Lord consulted his own wisdom and taste and ventured to offer in Godrsquos worship the fruit of the groundmdashan un-bloody sacrifice while Abel conforming to the appointments and prescribed usages in which he had been trained expressed his faith and obedience by offering a

7

lamb Abelrsquos worship was accepted and Cainrsquos rejected And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect Thus in the immediate family of Adam we behold a signal and typical instance of self-assertion and disregard of divine prescriptions in the matter of worship This was swiftly followed by Godrsquos disapprobation and then came the development of sin in the atrocious crime of fratricide and the banishment of the murderer from the communion of his family and the presence of his God

(2) Lev 101-3 Nadab and Abihu And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not1 And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Then Moses said unto Aaron This is it that the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified And Aaron held his peace These young men as the sons of Israelrsquos high priest were legitimately employed in discharging the appointed functions of the sacerdotal office But they presumed to add to Godrsquos commandments Exercising their own will in regard to the mode of his worship they did that which he did not command them and they were instantly killed for their wicked temerity

(3) Num 16 Korah Dathan and Abiram God had consecrated those descendants of Levi who sprang from Aaron to the priesthood while the remaining descendants of Levi were set apart to other offices pertaining to the service of the tabernacle Korah was a Levite but not a son of Aaron Dathan and Abiram were not even Levites but appear to have descended from Reuben When therefore these men asserting the claim that the whole congregation were entitled to rank with Moses and Aaron ventured to assume to themselves functions which God had restricted to a certain class they were overtaken by the swift indignation of Jehovah and perished in an awful manner The ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods They and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the congregation

(4) Num 20 Moses smiting the rock at Kadesh When on a previous occasion the Israelites were suffering from thirst God commanded Moses to smite the rock at Horeb This he did and water gushed forth abundantly The apostle Paul tells us that that rock typified Christ The typical teaching furnished by Moses then was that from the one death of Christ under the smiting of the law the grace of the Holy Ghost should proceed to satisfy the thirst of the soul

1 That is which he did not command them

8

Christ was to be smitten unto death only once Now again at Kadesh the Israelites suffer for want of water God commands Moses to speak unto the rock To this explicit command he rashly ventured to add He spoke to the people instead of the rock and he smote the rock and smote it twice He used his own judgment asserted his own will and taught the people falsely For this sin he and Aaron who concurred with him in its commission were excluded from entrance into the promised land And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother and speak ye to the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth his water and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock and he said unto them Hear now ye rebels must we fetch you water out of this rock And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them

We have here an inexpressibly affecting instance of the sin and folly of adding human inventions to the ordinances of Godrsquos appointment of the dreadful results that may follow from what men may conceive slight departures from obedience to the commands of God Not to speak of Aaron the accomplished orator the venerable saint the first anointed high priest of his people this incomparable man Moses in whom were blended all natural gifts and supernatural graces the deliverer the legislator the historian the poet the judge and the commander of Israel after having brought them out of Egypt conducted them through the parted waters of the Red Sea mediated between them and God amidst the terrors of Sinai led them through the horrors of the waste and howling desertmdashthis glorious man now in sight of the Jordan which like a thread separated them from the long-sought long-coveted goal of their hearts is doomed for one addition to Godrsquos command which no doubt seemed to him but a slight deviation from his instructions to die short of the promised land

(5) I Sam 13 Saul offering a burnt-offering at Gilgal The king had no command to officiate as priest Saul added to Godrsquos command and performed a function for which he had no authority The circumstances seemed to him to justify the act But he gained the divine disapprobation and lost his kingdom for the blunder As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling And he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him And Saul said Bring hither a burnt-offering to me and peace-offerings And he offered the burnt-offering And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-

9

offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him And Samuel said What hast thou done And Saul said Because I saw that the people were scattered from me and that thou camest not within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash therefore said I The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal and I have not made supplication unto the Lord I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt-offering And Samuel said to Saul Thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee

(6) I Chron 137 8 1511-15 Uzza and the ark and Davidrsquos subsequent obedience The Levites or more particularly the Kohathites were expressly commanded to bear the ark The manner of bearing it was also commanded Rings were appended through which staves were run These poles covered with gold were to be supported on the shoulders of the bearers They were forbidden to touch the ark upon pain of death After that the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die Such was Godrsquos command In transporting it from the house of Abinadab David infringed the divine command by directing the ark to be borne on a cart drawn by oxen Then when the animals stumbled Uzza with the intention of saving the ark from falling touched it with his hand He was instantly killed for his pious disobedience And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart And David and all Israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumbled And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God The offence was the more inexcusable because the staves were never detached from the ark and it is not at all likely that the Philistines who had been subjected to so severe a treatment while they had it in their possession had ventured to steal them And it deserves consideration that those heathen had not been killed for handling the ark while for doing the same thing Godrsquos people who should have known better were taught an awful lesson

The magnificent demonstration suffered a disastrous arrest and the king of Israel sobered by the warning he had received returned home to do what he ought to have done beforemdashto study the law of God Having accomplished this neglected office he makes a second attempt to remove the sacred symbol of Godrsquos covenant to Jerusalem but in a different fashion from the

10

former Let us hear the record And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests and for the Levites for Uriel Asaiah and Joel Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab and said unto them Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it For because ye did it not at the first the Lord our God made a breach upon us for that we sought him not after the due order So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel And the children of the Levites bare the ark upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord It merits notice that when the ark was to be removed and instated in its place in the temple which was about to be dedicated Solomon caused the due order to be observed And all the elders of Israel came and the Levites took up the ark And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the congregation and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle these did the priests and the Levites bring up And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place2 The history of this matter enforces the impressive lesson that we are not at liberty to use our own judgment and to act without a divine warrant in regard to things of Godrsquos appointment

(7) 2 Chron 2616-21 King Uzziah officiating as a priest God had given no warrant to a king to act as priest and Uzziah arrogantly undertook without such warrant to discharge sacerdotal functions The consequences of his impiety are vividly depicted in the following record But when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him fourscore priests of the Lord that were valiant men and they withstood Uzziah the king and said unto him It appertaineth not unto thee Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for thou hast trespassed neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God Then Uzziah was wroth and had a censer in his hand to burn incense and while he was wroth with the priests the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked upon him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence yea himself hasted also to go out because the Lord had smitten him And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death and dwelt in a several house being a leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord

(8) 2 Chron 283-5 King Ahaz doubly offending as to function and place He performed priestly functions without a divine warrant and performed them in places which God had not appointed For this wicked self-assertion he was visited with divine vengeance Moreover he

2 2 Chron 5457

11

burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of them captives and brought them to Damascus And he was also delivered into the hands of the king of Israel who smote him with a great slaughter

(9) The jealousy of God for the principle of a divine warrant for everything in his worship is most conspicuously illustrated in New Testament times by the tremendous judgments which befell the Jewish people for perpetuating without such a warrant the typical ritual of the temple-service Until the great atoning sacrifice was offered they had a positive warrant from God for the observance of that order But when that sacrifice had been offered the veil of the temple had been rent in twain and the Holy Ghost had been copiously poured out at the inauguration of a new dispensation the positive warrant for the temple-worship was withdrawn This Stephen insisted on before the Council and the illustrious witness for Christ was murdered for his testimony He charged that when their fathers had no warrant to worship sacrificially except at the temple they had persisted in observing that worship elsewhere and now that God had withdrawn the warrant to worship at the temple they demanded the right to worship there Ye do always said the glorious servant of Jesus resist the Holy Ghost For this sin by which they endorsed their rejection of their Messiah and Saviour their church-state and national polity were demolished and they after the experience of an unparalleled tribulation were scattered to the four winds of heaven Have we not the evidence before us at this day

The mighty principle has thus been established by an appeal to the didactic statements of Godrsquos word and to special instances recorded in scriptural history that a divine warrant is required for everything in the faith and practice of the Church that whatsoever is not in the Scriptures commanded either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence is forbidden The special application of this principle to the worship of God as illustrated in the concrete examples which have been furnished cannot escape the least attentive observation God is seen manifesting a most vehement jealousy in protecting the purity of his worship Any attempt to assert the judgment the will the taste of man apart from the express warrant of his Word and to introduce into his worship human inventions devices and methods was overtaken by immediate retribution and rebuked by the thunderbolts of his wrath Nor need we wonder at this for the service which the creature professes to render to God reaches its highest and most formal expression in the worship which is offered him In this act the majesty of the Most High is directly confronted The worshipper presents himself face to face with the infinite Sovereign

12

of heaven and earth and assumes to lay at his feet the sincerest homage of the heart In the performance of such an act to violate divine appointments or transcend divine prescription to affirm the reason of a sinful creature against the wisdom the will of a sinful creature against the authority of God is deliberately to flaunt an insult in his face and to hurl an indignity against his throne What else could follow but the flash of divine indignation It is true that in the New Testament dispensation the same swift and visible arrest of this sin is not the ordinary rule But the patience and forbearance of God can constitute no justification of its commission Its punishment if it be not repented of is only deferred Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil while the delayed justice of God is gathering to itself indignation to burst forth like an overwhelming tempest in the dreadful day of wrath

The principle that has been emphasized is in direct opposition to that maintained by Romanists and Prelatists and I regret to say by lax Presbyterians that what is not forbidden in the Scriptures is permitted The Church of England in her twentieth article concedes to the church a power to decree rites and ceremonies with this limitation alone upon its exercise that it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to Godrsquos written word3 The principle of the discretionary power of the church in regard to things not commanded by Christ in his Word was the chief fountain from which flowed the gradually increasing tide of corruptions that swept the Latin church into apostasy from the gospel of Godrsquos grace And as surely as causes produce their appropriate effects and history repeats itself in obedience to that law any Protestant church which embodies that principle in its creed is destined sooner or later to experience a similar fate The same too may be affirmed of a church which formally rejects it and practically conforms to it The reason is plain The only bridle that checks the degenerating tendency of the churchmdasha tendency manifested in all agesmdashis the Word of God for the Spirit of grace Himself ordinarily operates only in connection with that Word If this

3 Some curious and remarkable statements have been made with reference to this article When in 1808 the question of the introduction of instrumental music into public worship was before the Presbytery of Glasgow the Rev Dr Begg father of the late Dr James Begg published a treatise on the Use of Organs in which the following statement is attributed to the Rev Alexander Hislop The Church of England has admitted into its articles this principle that it belongs to lsquothe churchrsquo of her own authority to lsquodecree rites and ceremoniesrsquo (Article 20 ) As a matter of historical fact this principle was never agreed to by the Convocation that adopted the Thirty-nine Articles this sentence being found neither in the first printed edition of the articles nor in the draft of them that passed the Convocation and which is still in existence with the autograph signatures of the members but it is believed to have been surreptitiously inserted by the hand of Queen Elizabeth herself who had much of the over-bearing spirit of her father Henry VIII and who as head of the church which the English constitution made her was determined to have a pompous worship under her ecclesiastical control In support of this statement reference is made to authorities in Presbyterian Review July 1843 The Use of Organs etc by James Begg DD (p 150) See also Bannermanrsquos Church of Christ Vol I p 339

13

restraint be discarded the downward lapse is sure The words of the great theologian John Owenmdashand the British Isles have produced no greatermdashare solemn and deserve to be seriously pondered The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God either as to matter or manner beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry of all the confusion blood persecution and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world

In view of such considerations as these confirmed as they are by the facts of all past history it is easy to see how irrelevant and baseless is the taunt flung by high churchmen ritualists and latitudinarians of every stripe against the maintainers of the opposite principle that they are narrow-minded bigots who take delight in insisting upon trivial details The truth is exactly the other way The principle upon which this cheap ridicule is cast is simple broad majestic It affirms only the things that God has commanded the institutions and ordinances that he has prescribed and besides this discharges only a negative office which sweeps away every trifling invention of manrsquos meretricious fancy It is not the supporters of this principle but their opponents who delight in insisting upon crossings genuflexions and bowings to the east upon vestments altars and candles upon organs and cornets and the dear antiphonies that so bewitch their prelates and their chapters with the goodly echo they make in fine upon all that finical trumpery which inherited from the woman clothed in scarlet marks the trend backward to the Rubicon and the seven-hilled mart of souls

But whatever others may think or do Presbyterians cannot forsake this principle without the guilt of defection from their own venerable standards and from the testimonies sealed by the blood of their fathers Among the principles that the Reformers extracted from the rubbish of corruption and held up to light again none were more comprehensive far-reaching and profoundly reforming than this It struck at the root of every false doctrine and practice and demanded the restoration of the true Germany has been infinitely the worse because of Lutherrsquos failure to apply it to the full Calvin enforced it more fully The great French Protestant Church with the exception of retaining a liturgical relic of popery gave it a grand application and France suffered an irreparable loss when she dragooned almost out of existence the body that maintained it John Knox stamped it upon the heart of the Scottish Church and it constituted the glory of the English Puritans Alas that it is pasting into decadence in the Presbyterian churches of England Scotland and America What remains but that those who still see it and cling to it as to something dearer than life itself should continue to utter however feebly however inoperatively their unchanging testimony to its truth It is the acropolis of the churchrsquos liberties the palladium of her purity That gone nothing will be left to hope but to strain its gaze towards the dawn of the millennial day Thenmdashwe are entitled to expectmdasha

14

more thorough-going and glorious reformation will be effected than any that has blessed the church and the world since the magnificent propagation of Christianity by the labors of the inspired apostles themselves

15

II

ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the Jewish dispensation God was pleased to proceed in accordance with the great principle which has been signalized in regard to the introduction of instrumental music into the public worship of his people He kept the ordering of this part of his formal and instituted worship in his own hands There is positive proof that it was never made an element of that worship except by his express command Without his warrant it was excluded only with it was it employed

1 Let us notice the operation of this principle with reference to the tabernacle-worship

Moses received the mode of constructing the tabernacle and the order of its worship by divine revelation See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount It will be admitted that the instructions thus divinely given descended to the most minute detailsmdashthe sort of fabrics and skins to be used and their diverse colors the pins the ouches and the taches the ablutions the vestments and the actions of the officiating priests and Levites the ingredients of the holy ointment and the incense the parts the arrangements the instruments of worshipmdashto everything connected with the tabernacle these specific directions referred Of course if God had intended instrumental music to be employed it would have been included in these particular directions the instruments would have been specified for its performance and regulations enjoined for its use

What now are the facts No directions are given respecting instruments of music Two instruments of sound are provided for but they were of such a character as to make it impracticable to use them ordinarily as accompaniments of the voice in singing The record is And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Make thee two trumpets of silver of a whole piece shalt thou make them that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly and for the journeying of the camps And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you thou shalt blow an alarm with the trumpets and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies Also in the days of your gladness and in your solemn days and in the beginnings of your months ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings that they may be to you for a memorial before your God I am the Lord your God The blowing of these trumpets as a signal for marching or for going to war had certainly nothing to do with worship neither did the call of the congregation to assemble belong to the performance of worship any more than

16

a church bell now the ringing of which ceases when the services begin There is nothing to show that the blowing of the trumpets on festival days and at the beginning of months over the offerings was accompanied by singing on the part of priests and Levites There is no mention of that fact and Jewish tradition opposes the supposition Moreover it is almost certain that the blowing of trumpets on such occasions was a representative act performed by the priests and that consequently it was not accompanied by the singing of the congregation It is true that there is one recorded exception (2 Chron 512 13) which occurred however when the tabernacle had given way to the temple At the dedication of the latter edifice the priests blew the trumpets at the same time that the Levites sang and played upon instruments of music so as to make one sound but it is evident that on that great occasion of rejoicing what was aimed at was not musical harmony but a powerful crash of jubilant sound We are shut up to the conclusion that there was nothing in the tabernacle-worship as ordered by Moses which could be justly characterized as instrumental music

This absence of instrumental music from the services of the tabernacle continued not only during the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert but after their entrance into the promised land throughout the protracted period of the Judges the reign of Saul and a part of Davidrsquos This is a noteworthy fact Although David was a lover of instrumental music and himself a performer upon the harp it was not until some time after his reign had begun that this order of things was changed and as we shall see changed by divine command Let us hear the scriptural record (1 Chron 231-6) So when David was old and full of days he made Solomon his son king over Israel And he gathered together all the princes of Israel with the priests and the Levites Now the Levites were numbered by the age of thirty years and upward and their number by their polls man by man was fifty and eight thousand of which twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and six thousand were officers and judges moreover four thousand were porters and four thousand praised the Lord with the instruments which I made said David to praise therewith And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi namely Gershon Kohath and Merari Now how did David come to make this alteration in the Mosaic order which had been established by divine revelation For the answer let us again consult the sacred record (1 Chron 2811-13 19) Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch and of the houses thereof and of the treasuries thereof and of the inner parlors thereof and of the place of the mercy-seat and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord and of all the chambers round about of the treasuries of the house of God and of the treasuries of the dedicated things also for the courses of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord All this said David the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me and all the works of this pattern 2 Chron 2925 26 And he [Solomon] set the Levites in the house of the Lord

17

with cymbals with psalteries and with harps according to the commandment of David and of Gad the kingrsquos seer and of Nathan the prophet for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets

In the light of these statements of Godrsquos Word several things are made evident which challenge our serious attention First instrumental music never was divinely warranted as an element in the tabernacle-worship until David received inspired instructions to introduce it as preparatory to the transition which was about to be effected to the more elaborate ritual of the temple Secondly when the temple was to be built and its order of worship to be instituted David received a divine revelation in regard to it just as Moses had concerning the tabernacle with its ordinances Thirdly this direct revelation to David was enforced upon Solomon and upon the priests and Levites by inspired communications touching the same subject from the prophets Gad and Nathan Fourthly instrumental music would not have been constituted an element in the temple-worship had not God expressly authorized it by his command The public worship of the tabernacle up to the time when it was to be merged into the temple had been a stranger to it and so great an innovation could have been accomplished only by divine authority Godrsquos positive enactment grounded the propriety of the change

Is it not clear that the great principle that whatsoever is not commanded by God either expressly or impliedly in relation to the public worship of his house is forbidden meets here a conspicuous illustration The bearing of all this upon the Christian church is as striking as it is obvious If under a dispensation dominantly characterized by external appointments instrumental music could not be introduced into the worship of Godrsquos sanctuary except in consequence of a warrant furnished by him how can a church existing under the far simpler and more spiritual dispensation of the gospel venture without such a warrant to incorporate it into its public services and that no such warrant can be pleaded will be made apparent as the argument expands

2 Against the conclusiveness of this argument it is objected that the Israelites were accustomed to use instrumental music at their option and that especially was this the case on occasions of public rejoicing when thanksgivings were by masses of the people rendered to God for signal benefits conferred by his delivering providence So far as the allegation concerns the employment of that kind of music in private or social life it is irrelevant to the scope of an argument which has reference explicitly and solely to its use in the public worship of Godrsquos house This will rule out many of the instances which are cited to prove the untenableness of the principle contended for in this discussion

There remains however another class of cases to which attention may be fairly directed cases in which public worship appeared to be offered Into this class fall the instances of Miriamrsquos

18

playing upon the timbrel at the Red Sea the welcome of Saul and David by the women with singing dancing and instrumental music the like instance of Jephthahrsquos daughter the accompanying of the ark by David and Israel with bands of music and the minstrelsy of the prophets to whom Saul joined himself In reply to the objection based upon these instances the general ground may be taken that they are examples not of church-worship but of public rejoicing on the part of the nation or of communities with the exception of the prophetsrsquo minstrelsy which will be separately considered Some special remarks are however pertinent in regard to them

In the first place it will be noticed from the account of the triumphant rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea that the men sang only Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake saying etc What can be gathered from this simple singing of the males of Israel in praise of God for their great deliverance in favor of instrumental music in worship it is rather difficult to see

In the second place it was Miriam and the women who used instruments of music on the occasion And Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances The argument of the objector proves too much If from this instance the legitimacy of employing instrumental music in the public worship of the Jewish Church is to be inferred so may the legitimacy of its use by women in that worship But the history of the appointments of that worship furnishes no evidence of the tenableness of the latter inference The contrary is proved Women were excluded from any prominent at least any official function in the services of Godrsquos house in the Mosaic dispensation4 It was the males of Israel who were commanded to repair to Jerusalem on those festival occasions when bursts of instrumental music were united with the singing of praise in the temple-worship Indeed so far from the women taking an active part in that worship it would seem to have been limited as to its outward expression in sounds to the priests and Levites who as the divinely appointed official representatives of the congregation sang and played on instruments of music The argument might do for a modern advocate of womanrsquos rights but it will hardly answer for the Jewish dispensation It is as barren of results as was Miriam herself of issue

In the third place it again proves too much if the word rendered dances is correctly translated It would prove that religious dancing was an element in the prescribed worship of Godrsquos people The consequence refutes the argument

4 The daughters of Heman mentioned I Chron 255 were not singers and performers on instruments in the public worship for they are not included in the enumeration of the courses which follows

19

But to return to the general position that the instances mentioned in the objection were those not of ecclesiastical worship but of national rejoicing Against this general view it is urged in reply that an unwarrantable distinction is made between the Jewish church and the Jewish nation This raises the question whether such a distinction is valid Were state and church identical Did the members of the state act as members of the church Did the members of the church act as members of the state It may be admitted that in the mainmdashthat is with certain exceptions such as the proselytes of righteousness for examplemdashthe nation and the church were numerically coincident Ordinarilymdashthat is with certain exceptionsmdashthe rite of circumcision designated one alike a member of the state and of the church But that these two institutes were identical that the functions of the one were the functions of the other considered as organisms is to my mind not susceptible of proof It would be unsuitable here to enter at large into this question but it lies across the track of the argument in hand and a brief consideration of it as it is not illogically interjected will not be regarded as impertinent The question is acutely and ably discussed by that great man George Gillespie in his Aaronrsquos Rod Blossoming I shall give a mere outline the bare heads of a part of his argument to prove that the Jewish state and church although in the main the same materially that is as to personal constituents were organically and formally distinct institutes and I do this the more readily because Gillespiersquos valuable work is now rare and difficult of access They are distinct

(1) In respect of laws The judicial law was given to the state the ceremonial law to the church

(2) In respect of acts The members of the state did not as such worship God and offer sacrifices in the temple etc and the members of the church did not as such inflict physical punishments

(3) In respect of controversies to be decided Some concerned the Lordrsquos matters and were to be ecclesiastically settled some the kingrsquos matters and were to be civilly decided

(4) In respect of officers The priests and Levites were church officers magistrates and judges were state officers

(5) In respect of continuance The Romans took away the Jewish state and civil government but the Jewish church and ecclesiastical government remained

(6) In respect of variation The constitution and government of the Jewish state underwent serious changes under different civil administrations but we cannot say that the church was remodelled as often as the state was

20

(7) In respect of members There were proselytes the proselytes of righteousness who were admitted to membership in the church with its privileges but were not entitled to the privileges of members of the state

(8) In respect of government In the prosecution of this argument to prove the distinctness of the Jewish church and state Gillespie takes the ground that there were two Sanhedrims one civil the other ecclesiastical and he cites as maintaining that view Zepperus Junius Piscator Wolfius Gerhard Godwin Bucerus Walaeus Pelargus Sopingius the Dutch Annotators Bertramus Apollonius Strigelius the professors of Groningen Reynolds Paget LrsquoEmpereur and Elias cited by Buxtorf

[This special argument Gillespie presses elaborately and acutely by more than a dozen separate considerations derived from Scripture But as the question has been ably debated on both sides by men learned in Jewish affairs no positive opinion is here expressed as to the conclusiveness of the proofs presented by the great Scotch divine]

(9) There was an ecclesiastical excommunication among the Jews different from the penalties inflicted by the criminal law of the state

Such are the ribs merely of a powerful argument in favor of the distinction between the Jewish state and church by one who had the reputation of being one of the astutest debaters in the Westminster Assembly of Divines That distinguished scholar Dr Joseph Addison Alexander expresses the opinion in his Primitive Church Offices that the Jewish state and church were one organization with two distinct classes of functions one civil and another ecclesiastical But Gillespie shows that the numerical components of some of the courts were different they consisted of different men Take either view however and the ends of this argument are met more conclusively upon Gillespiersquos it is true but conclusively upon both What the state as such did the church as such did not do and vice versa And if this be so it follows that the same thing holds in regard to the people What they did in a national capacity they did not necessarily do in an ecclesiastical When then Miriam and the women with her the women who welcomed Saul and David returning home in triumph the daughter of Jephthah celebrating her fatherrsquos victory and the mass of people who accompanied the ark in its transportation to Jerusalem played on instruments of music they were commemorating national events with appropriate national rejoicings They were not acting worship as the church or as the members of the church

In regard to the company of prophets whom Saul joined it is sufficient to say that they were in part the poets and minstrels of the nation and that as the incident occurred during the existence of the tabernacle the incontestable proof which has been already exhibited that

21

instrumental music such as that which they employed was not allowed in its worship is enough to sweep all ground from beneath the objection now considered against the operation of the great principle of limitation upon church worship for which I have contended This holds good whether or not the view which has been presented as to these prophets be correct Their playing on instruments had nothing to do with the public formally instituted worship of the house of the Lord

It has thus been shown by a direct appeal to the Scriptures that during all the protracted period in which the tabernacle was Godrsquos sanctuary the great principle was enforced that only what God commands is permitted and what he does not command is forbidden in the public worship of his house Moses with all his wisdom the Judges with all their intrepidity Saul with all his waywardness and self-will David the sweet Psalmist of Israel with all his skill in the musical art did not any of them venture to violate that principle and introduce into the public services of Godrsquos house the devices of their imagination or the inventions of their taste The lesson is certainly impressive coming as it does from that distant age and it behooves those who live in a dispensation this side of the cross of Calvary and the day of Pentecost to show cause beyond a peradventure why they are discharged from the duty of obedience to the divine will in this vitally important matter

3 The next step in this argument is to show that no musical instruments were used in the synagogue-worship

As this is almost universally admitted no extended argument is needed to prove it It might have been expected from the jealousy which God had always peculiarly manifested in enforcing the principle that without an express warrant from him nothing was to be introduced into the public worship of his people and especially from the facts already emphasized that no instruments of music were allowed to be employed in the tabernacle and that they were included in the service at the temple only in consequence of explicit divine instructions to that effect it might have been expected that instrumental music would not have been incorporated into the worship of the Jews on ordinary Sabbath days not embraced in the three national festivals This presumption is confirmed by the facts of the case

The writers who have most carefully investigated Jewish antiquities and have written learnedly and elaborately in regard to the synagogue concur in showing that its worship was destitute of instrumental music What singing there was and there was not much of it in proportion to the other elements of worship was plain and simple In his great work On the Ancient Synagogue

22

Vitringa shows5 that there were only two instruments of sound used in connection with the synagogue and that these were employed not in worship or along with it as an accompaniment but as publishing signalsmdashfirst for proclaiming the new year secondly for announcing the beginning of the Sabbath thirdly for publishing the sentence of excommunication and fourthly for heralding fasts These were their sole uses There were no sacrifices over which they were to be blown as in the tabernacle and temple And from the nature of the instruments it is plain that they could not have accompanied the voice in singing They were only of two kindsmdashtrumpets (tubae) and ramsrsquo horns or cornets (buccinae) The former were straight the latter curved Nor is it to be supposed that the cornet like the modern instrument of that name was susceptible of modulation and therefore of accompanying vocal melody It had but one note and was so easy to be blown that a child could sound it Further they were for the most part used not even in connection with the synagogue buildings but were blown from the roofs of houses so as to be heard at a distance Enough has been said to prove that no instrumental music entered into the services of the Jewish synagogue6

The elements of worship in the Mosaic dispensation were of two kinds

(1) The generic or essential Those observed in the synagogue were the reading and exposition of Godrsquos Word exhortation prayers accompanied with singing if the common recitation by the people of parts of the Psalms can be so characterized and the contribution of alms Without here raising the question whether synagogues had an existence prior to the Babylonian exile one would risk little in taking the ground that during all the time of the churchrsquos development in the past Godrsquos people had been accustomed to meet on Sabbath days for engagement in these essential parts of divine worship The patriarchal dispensation being left out of account in which however every sentiment of piety and reverence the original institution of the seventh day as one of rest and the acquaintance of the Israelites with the law of the Sabbath before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law render it highly probable that such a practice was maintained a few reasons will be intimated in favor of its maintenance during the period of the Jewish economy

First The fourth commandment made the sacred observance of every Sabbath day obligatory It is not reasonable to suppose that the law contemplated the merely individual and private keeping holy of the day

5 De Synag Vetere Lib I Pars i Chap 10 Lightfoot on Matt vi 2 See also Josephus Ant Jud Lib iii Chap 12 6 The orthodox Jews even to the present day [1888] oppose its use in the synagogue The writer knew a congregation in Charleston SC to be rent in twain in consequence of an attempt to introduce an organ

23

Secondly The Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness were accustomed to worship every Sabbath day in mass at the tabernacle It was accessible from every part of the encampment which was around it on every side The proof of this is given in Lev 233 Six days Shall work be done but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest an holy convocation The prescriptive usage of meeting for worship on every Sabbath was thus established during their forty yearsrsquo pilgrimage in the desert In all that time during which they held weekly assemblies let it also be observed they knew nothing of instrumental music It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that this habit ingrained into them in the early period of their national existence and consecrated by innumerable sacred and splendid associations would have ceased to be influential after their wanderings had ceased and they had been permanently located in the land of rest Such an innovation upon their customs could only have occurred in consequence either of a divine command enforcing the change or of a serious defection from their religious principles We know that neither of these causes operated to produce the supposed revolution in their habits of worship Upon their settlement in Canaan they were of course dispersed in consequence of their tribal distribution throughout the length and breadth of the country from Dan to Beersheba and as the tabernacle was necessarily at any particular time confined to one spot it was not accessible to congregations representing all Israel except upon the occasions of the prescribed national festivals What then were they doing on all the other Sabbaths of the year in their cities and towns villages and rural neighborhoods It cannot be supposed that on those Sabbaths they never met for worship7 This consideration is mightily enhanced by the fact that only the males of Israel were enjoined to attend the great annual festivals Were the women the mothers of Israel the trainers of children and youth left destitute of all public worship The supposition cannot be entertained Provision must have been made for their engagement in the stated public worship of their God

Thirdly The priests and Levites when not occupied in the discharge of their formal official duties at the temple were distributed through the land and there is evidence to show that they acted as teachers of schools Is it likely that ministers of religion would have educated the people in everything but the divine law or that they would have failed to assemble them on Sabbath days for the reception of religious instruction or that such instruction would have been unattended by worship It may be said that this amounts to no more than a presumption But if so it is a powerful presumption and is strongly confirmed by other considerations such as those that follow

7 Under every preceding dispensation the sanctity of the Sabbath had been a fundamental part of the revealed religion the synagogue worship goes back possibly to the captivity in Egypt certainly to the captivity in BabylonmdashBreckinridgersquos Subjec Theology p 530

24

Fourthly The Israelites were commanded to proclaim the incoming of the Sabbaths and the new moons by the blowing of trumpets That these seasons were observed with the solemn worship of assemblies is rendered almost certain by the passage in 2 Kings chapter 4 in which it is intimated that on those occasions the prophets were accustomed to hold meetings for instruction and worship The Shunammite whose son had been restored to life by Elisha having lost the child by death proposed to her husband to provide her with the necessaries for a journey to the prophet at Mount Carmel His reply was Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day It is neither new moon nor Sabbath The answer cannot be understood except upon the supposition here contended formdashnamely that the Sabbaths and new moons were seasons of gathering for instruction and worship and it is certain that Carmel was not Jerusalem and that weekly Sabbaths and the beginnings of months did not occur only three times a year

Fifthly In Psalm 748 the Psalmist in view of the devastation of the country by its enemies thus laments They said in their hearts Let us destroy them together they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land It is not necessary to suppose that the buildings here rendered synagogues exactly corresponded with those erected for worship after the return from the Babylonish captivity but they were places for worship8 Possibly they were as Prideaux and others suggest uncovered places of worship proseuchae but they were buildings else how could they have been burned And that they were not the halls adjoining the temple as some conjecture is proved by the statement that they were throughout the land All the synagogues of God in the land Were the temple buildings ubiquitous In this exposition not a few eminent commentators agree Dr McCurdy in Langersquos Commentary on the place says that these buildings were places of meeting in different parts of the land Calvin remarks I readily take the Hebrew moadim in the sense of synagogues because he says all the sanctuaries and speaks expressly of the whole land Adam Clarke observes The word moadey which we translate synagogues may be taken in a more general sense and mean any places where religious assemblies were held and that such places and assemblies did exist long before the Babylonish captivity is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture9

Dr Plumptre in the article on synagogues in Smithrsquos Dictionary of the Bible citing Vitringa On the Synagogue (pp 271 ff) says Jewish writers have claimed for their synagogues a very remote antiquity In well-nigh every place where the phrase before the Lord appears they recognize in it a known sanctuary a fixed place of meeting and therefore a synagogue This

8 See Hornersquos Introduction vol ii p 102 for a confirmation of this view It is there shown to have been advocated by Josephus and Philo and also by Grotius Ernesti Whitby Doddridge and Lardner 9 George Gillespie says After the tribes were settled in the land of promise synagogues were built in the case of an urgent necessity because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place that God had chosen that his name might dwell there Eng Pop Cerem p 116

25

view is taken in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan On the one hand says Dr Plumptre it is probable that if new moons and Sabbaths were observed at all [it was shown above that they were] they must have been attended by some celebration apart from as well as at the tabernacle or the temple On the other so far as we find traces of such local worship it seems to have fallen too readily into a fetich religion sacrifices to ephods and teraphim in groves and on high places offering nothing but a contrast to the lsquoreasonable servicersquo the prayers psalms instruction in the law of the later synagogue This to some extent not universally is lamentably true but the abuse proves the legitimate use of these stated seasons and places of public worship separately from the tabernacle and temple services

The gatherings of the elders during the exile for instruction by the prophet which are repeatedly mentioned in Ezekiel infer that the practice of holding assemblies for worship and the hearing of the law antedated the captivity The exiles carried the custom with them The words in Ezek 1115 16 seem to imply that God manifested his gracious presence in these meetings of his people as in little sanctuaries somewhat as in former and better times he had done at the greater sanctuaries in their native land This view is supported remarks the learned author who has been quoted by the LXX the Vulgate and the Authorized Version It is confirmed by the general consensus of Jewish interpreters

If these arguments have availed to prove that the people of Israel were accustomed to hold stated meetings for worship apart from the services of the tabernacle and the temple the well-ascertained practice of the post-exilian synagogues clearly establishes the absence of instrumental music from those weekly assemblies For had that kind of music been employed in those meetings it would inevitably have been continued in the synagogue-worship Every conceivable consideration would have opposed its eliminationmdashthe powerful force of long-continued precedents the prescriptive usages of the past hallowed by sacred associations the conservative sentiment which resists a revolutionary innovation and more than all the demands of human taste and the requirements of an acknowledged artistic standard But it is certain that no instrumental music was used in the worship of the later synagogue The argument is well-nigh irresistible

If it be contended that instrumental music which had previously existed was purged out of the regular worship of the Jews by the post-exilian reformation the question at issue is given up For if the Jews reformed the worship of the church by abandoning instrumental music much more should it have been discarded at the greater reformation inaugurated by Christianity Otherwise it would be conceded that the Christian Church was less pure in its worship less thoroughly reformed than was the Jewish Church in its later and better state

26

It has thus been shown that the essential parts of divine worship were maintained by the people of God in their ordinary Sabbath-day worship during the Jewish dispensation and it is the purpose of this discussion as it shall be developed to evince the fact that only these essential elements of worship passed over into the Christian dispensation They are permanent and like the covenant of grace in its generic and essential features as contradistinguished to the specific and accidental were designed to endure unchanged through all dispensations

(2) The second kind of elements of worship in the Mosaic economy was the Specific or Accidental which was Typical and Symbolical and as such temporary in its nature10 Warburton says that types and symbols are generically the same in that they are both representations but they are specifically different in that the type represents something future the symbol something past or present Hence he regarded the sacraments of the New Testament as symbols Thornwell observes that they differ from each other in the circumstance that types teach by analogy and symbols by expressive signs Without pausing to discuss the nature of the specific differences between them or to consider the question whether some of the elements in the Jewish ritual service were not at the same time both typical and symbolical I proceed to show that the types of the temple-worship did not as is too often carelessly assumed have exclusive reference to the sacrifice of Christ but that some of them represented beforehand the effects to be produced in the New Testament dispensation by the Holy Ghost and I will then attempt further to show that the instrumental music of the temple-worship fell into the latter class and therefore as having fulfilled its typical and temporary office passed away and vanished upon the introduction of the Christian economy But before these points are developed it is requisite that a few things be premised

In the first place no element in the synagogue-worship was typical and temporary This is too evident to require argument The reading and exposition of the divine Word hortatory addresses the singing of psalms and the contribution of alms are elements of worship which cannot be regarded as types foreshadowing substantial realities to come They belong to the class essential and permanent

In the second place the essential and permanent elements of worship as fundamental to all public religious service entered of course into the temple-worship In this respect there was no difference between the worship of the temple and that of the synagogue

10 Let it be observed that in making this distinction between essential and accidental elements of worship by the accidental are meant elements divinely commanded With the Reformed and Puritan divines I utterly repudiate the distinction as used by Prelatists to justify such accidental elements as human wisdom or church authority adds without divine warrant to the essential elements of worship

27

In the third place whatever element of worship was absent from the synagogue and present in the temple was typical or symbolical in its character Having in common what was essential and permanent the specific difference between them lay in the possession by one of the accidental and temporary and the non-possession by the other of the same Now the only elements falling into this latter class were the typical and symbolical These were embraced in the service of the temple and excluded from that of the synagogue Consequently as instrumental music was not included in the worship of the synagogue but was in that of the temple it must be regarded as having been either typical or symbolical Symbolical it cannot be considered it must therefore have been typical If so the necessity is recognized of attempting in the progress of this discussion to show of what it was typical

In the fourth place some of the elements of the temple-service were directly and solely typical of Christ especially as a priest and as the atoning sacrifice to be offered for sin Others were typical only of the Holy Ghost and still others were typical at one and the same time both of Christ and the Holy Spirit To use thc technically accurate language of theology the impetration or acquisition of salvation is attributed to Christ the application of it to the Holy Spirit But the grace which applies the benefits secured by the work of Christ is closely related to the work by which they were acquired Indeed it is itself acquired by the merit and intercession of the Redeemer They therefore suppose and implicate each other Consequently some of the types have a double reference to both When they immediately represent the Holy Spirit they at the same time mediately represent Christ Some of the positions taken in these preliminary remarks may be justly regarded and carried along with the discussion as assumptions demanding no proof and others will be substantiated as the argument proceeds

First The offices and work of the Holy Spirit were as clearly and definitely predicted and promised in the Old Testament Scriptures as were those of Christ The truth is that they cannot possibly be disjoined Neither would be operative to salvation without the other The whole Old Testament revelation so far as it was evangelical bore a twofold reference to the blood and the water to the meritorious acquisition of salvation by the righteousness and atoning death of Christ and its efficacious application by the grace of the Holy Ghost In the conception of redemption which we find everywhere in the Bible justification and sanctification are never dissociated They are ever represented as the complementary and equally necessary factors of one whole and complete salvation This is the very genius of the gospel as well before as after the death of the Son of God As it was proclaimed to our first parents revealed to Abel Enoch and Noah and as the apostle expressly testifies preached before to Abraham it was essentially promissory in its nature The same promissory character was still more fully disclosed in the features of the Mosaic dispensation in the Psalms and Prophets and as I hope to show in the typical rites and ceremonies of the temple-service That the person and offices

28

of the Holy Spirit were distinctly known to believers under the old dispensation is proved by utterances in the Psalms a book which represents the experience of Godrsquos true people in every condition of their history In the 51st Psalm we have the prayers Take not thy Holy Spirit from me Uphold me with thy free Spirit and in the 143rd Thy Spirit is good lead me to the land of uprightness Isaiah (chap 6310) says They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit which words as they were spoken of the house of Israel suppose that they knew or ought to have known the Holy Spirit as their guide It may be added that the sacred historians of the Old Testament over and over again assert with reference to the heroic worthies of that dispensation that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them All this goes to show that the promises which related to the work of the Holy Spirit at a future period of the churchrsquos development were not unintelligible by those to whom they were delivered

Let us cite some of those declarations which point to the work of the Spirit in the new dispensation Isa 3215-17 After describing the desolation that would be visited upon the land of Israel the prophet says Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever Isa 421 Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Isa 443 4 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water courses Isa 5919 20 21 So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seedrsquos seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever This prophecy in regard to the Spirit resisting a flood of enemies is referred by the Rabbins to the coming of the Messiah Ezek 3625-27 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them Ezek 3713 14 And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves O my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live and I shall place you in your own land then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it saith the Lord Joel

29

228 29 And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit For the reference of this glorious promise to New Testament times we have the inspired testimony of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost when it was measurably but remarkably fulfilled In close connection with the promise that a fountain shall be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness Zechariah utters also the promise 1210 And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications It matters little whether or not with some we take the word spirit here to indicate a disposition That disposition can be produced only by the Holy Spirit The apostle Paul it deserves to be considered terms the Spirit that holy Spirit of promise Eph 113 and in Gal 313 14 he speaks very explicitly about this matter Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith How closely does he couple the atoning work of Christ and the applying work of the Spirit And how clearly does he enounce the fact that the Spirit as well as Christ was promised in the ancient Scriptures and the early revelations made to the people of God

Secondly The offices of the Holy Ghost together with their saving and joy-imparting effects were typified as well as the priestly work and expiatory death of Christ in the services which were peculiar to the temple In view of what has been shown concerning the clearness and fulness with which the work of the Spirit in New Testament times is announced in the prophetical writings we would be prepared to find this true upon an examination of the temple types nor will we be disappointed by such an investigation Those types as well as the prophecies proclaimed the gospel They powerfully preached the whole salvation of the gospelmdashthe blood and the water justification and sanctification How could it be otherwise As God intended by these typical elements to represent as by object-lessons the scheme of redemption to his ancient people who lived before its actual achievement is it reasonable to suppose that he would have furnished an imperfect and inadequate pre-figuration of its essential parts Would he have omitted all instruction beforehand in regard to the mode of its application It is difficult to conceive how any theologian can fail to see the obvious foreshadowing in the temple furniture and service of the grace and work of the ever-blessed Spirit I shall select for comment only those elements which appear with the greatest clearness to typify the offices of the Holy Spirit

The Washing with Water Why was water employed as a type if not to signify what the New Testament Scriptures so unmistakably characterize under that figure Except a man said the

30

Lord Jesus be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 35) The preposition here is omitted before the Spirit in the original and the words may well be rendered of water even the Spirit At least this must be the meaning in the judgment of any one who would not co-ordinate external water with the almighty grace of the Holy Ghost in the new creation of the soul And to talk of onersquos being spiritually born in part of an outward symbol is to speak unintelligibly Paul several times uses washing and water to signify cleansing by the Holy Spirit Eph 526 That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the washing of water by the word I Cor 611 And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Tit 35 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and [or even the] renewing of the Holy Ghost John emphasizes the issue of water and blood from the side of Jesus on the cross and declares This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth And there are three that bear witness in earth the Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one (John 2034 I John 56 8) The Spirit bears witness both to justification and sanctification It is he who sanctifies and he who bears witness with his own work in the soul The analogy then between the type and the anti-type as to the offices respectively discharged leads to the conclusion that the lavers and ablutions of the temple typified the grace of the Holy Spirit This view is far from being singular It has the support of the illustrious Lightfoot The end of it [the laver] was he says to wash the hands and feet of the priests but the most ultimate end was to signify the washing and purifying by the Spirit of grace which is so oft called water in the Scripture And so the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice and the washing in the water of the laver did read the two great divinity lectures of washing by the blood of Christ from guilt and by the grace of God from filthiness and pollution11 This witness is true and his learning and piety render it superfluous to cite the testimony of others to the same purpose

The Anointing Oil Is it not clear from Scripture that this typified the Holy Spirit Under the Old Testament economy priests prophets and kings were anointed Did the anointing oil of the temple signify that Christ would anoint himself or rather did it not prefigure his anointing by the Holy Ghost He is the Christ Godrsquos anointed One and the holy Unction was the Spirit of wisdom power and grace Acts 1038 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power This direct testimony is sufficient The anointing oil of the temple discharged the typical office of prefiguring the holy Unction with which Jesus was anointed and who coming from him upon all his people teacheth them all things (1 John 227) This view also is sustained by the authority of the distinguished scholar who has already been cited The

11 Works Vol ix p 419 London 1823 Fairbairn takes substantially the same view Typology of Scripture Vol ii pp 212 213 See also MrsquoEwen Types Bk iii sect 3

5

I

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURE

Attention at the outset is invoked to the considerations which serve to establish the following controlling principle A divine warrant is necessary for every element of doctrine government and worship in the church that is whatsoever in these spheres is not commanded in the Scriptures either expressly or by good and necessary consequence from their statements is forbidden

1 This principle is deducible by logical inference from the great truthmdashconfessed by Protestantsmdashthat the Scriptures are an infallible rule of faith and practice and therefore supreme perfect and sufficient for all the needs of the Church All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works This truth operates positively to the inclusion of everything in the doctrine government and worship of the church which is commanded explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and negatively to the exclusion of everything which is not so commanded

2 This principle of the necessity of a divine warrant for everything in the faith and practice of the church is proved by didactic statements of Scripture

Num 1539 40 Remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes after which ye use to go a whoring that ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your God Ex 2540 And look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount Heb 85 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle for See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount Deut 42 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish aught from it that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you Deut 1232 What thing soever I command you observe to do it thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it Prov 305 6 Every word of God is pure he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him Add thou not unto his words lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar Isa 820 To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Dan 244 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people Matt 156 Thus have

6

ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition Matt 2819 20 Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Col 220-23 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances (touch not taste not handle not which are all to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh 2 Tim 316 17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works Rev 2218 19 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and out of the things which are written in this book

These solemn statements and awful warnings teach us the lesson that to introduce any devices and inventions of our own into the doctrine government or worship of the church is to add to the words of God and to fail in maintaining the principles and truths or in complying with the institutions and ordinances delivered to us in the Scriptures is to take away from the words of God The Romanists for example who hold the doctrine of transubstantiation and observe the sacrifice of the mass add to Godrsquos words and the Quakers who maintain the co-ordinate authority of immediate revelations of new original truth with the inspired Oracles and neglect the observance of the sacraments both add to and take away from them And in like manner those who import instrumental music into the ordained worship of the New Testament Church transcend the warrant of Scripture and add to the words which Christ our Lord has commanded

3 There are concrete instances recorded in the Scriptures which graphically illustrate the same great principle

(1) Gen 4 Cain and his offering The brothers Cain and Abel had been in childhood beyond all doubt instructed by their parents in the knowledge of the first promise of redemption to be accomplished by atonement They had we have every reason to believe often seen their father offering animal sacrifices in the worship of God To this mode of worship they had been accustomed Cain the type of rationalists and fabricators of rites and ceremonies in the house of the Lord consulted his own wisdom and taste and ventured to offer in Godrsquos worship the fruit of the groundmdashan un-bloody sacrifice while Abel conforming to the appointments and prescribed usages in which he had been trained expressed his faith and obedience by offering a

7

lamb Abelrsquos worship was accepted and Cainrsquos rejected And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect Thus in the immediate family of Adam we behold a signal and typical instance of self-assertion and disregard of divine prescriptions in the matter of worship This was swiftly followed by Godrsquos disapprobation and then came the development of sin in the atrocious crime of fratricide and the banishment of the murderer from the communion of his family and the presence of his God

(2) Lev 101-3 Nadab and Abihu And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not1 And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Then Moses said unto Aaron This is it that the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified And Aaron held his peace These young men as the sons of Israelrsquos high priest were legitimately employed in discharging the appointed functions of the sacerdotal office But they presumed to add to Godrsquos commandments Exercising their own will in regard to the mode of his worship they did that which he did not command them and they were instantly killed for their wicked temerity

(3) Num 16 Korah Dathan and Abiram God had consecrated those descendants of Levi who sprang from Aaron to the priesthood while the remaining descendants of Levi were set apart to other offices pertaining to the service of the tabernacle Korah was a Levite but not a son of Aaron Dathan and Abiram were not even Levites but appear to have descended from Reuben When therefore these men asserting the claim that the whole congregation were entitled to rank with Moses and Aaron ventured to assume to themselves functions which God had restricted to a certain class they were overtaken by the swift indignation of Jehovah and perished in an awful manner The ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods They and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the congregation

(4) Num 20 Moses smiting the rock at Kadesh When on a previous occasion the Israelites were suffering from thirst God commanded Moses to smite the rock at Horeb This he did and water gushed forth abundantly The apostle Paul tells us that that rock typified Christ The typical teaching furnished by Moses then was that from the one death of Christ under the smiting of the law the grace of the Holy Ghost should proceed to satisfy the thirst of the soul

1 That is which he did not command them

8

Christ was to be smitten unto death only once Now again at Kadesh the Israelites suffer for want of water God commands Moses to speak unto the rock To this explicit command he rashly ventured to add He spoke to the people instead of the rock and he smote the rock and smote it twice He used his own judgment asserted his own will and taught the people falsely For this sin he and Aaron who concurred with him in its commission were excluded from entrance into the promised land And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother and speak ye to the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth his water and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock and he said unto them Hear now ye rebels must we fetch you water out of this rock And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them

We have here an inexpressibly affecting instance of the sin and folly of adding human inventions to the ordinances of Godrsquos appointment of the dreadful results that may follow from what men may conceive slight departures from obedience to the commands of God Not to speak of Aaron the accomplished orator the venerable saint the first anointed high priest of his people this incomparable man Moses in whom were blended all natural gifts and supernatural graces the deliverer the legislator the historian the poet the judge and the commander of Israel after having brought them out of Egypt conducted them through the parted waters of the Red Sea mediated between them and God amidst the terrors of Sinai led them through the horrors of the waste and howling desertmdashthis glorious man now in sight of the Jordan which like a thread separated them from the long-sought long-coveted goal of their hearts is doomed for one addition to Godrsquos command which no doubt seemed to him but a slight deviation from his instructions to die short of the promised land

(5) I Sam 13 Saul offering a burnt-offering at Gilgal The king had no command to officiate as priest Saul added to Godrsquos command and performed a function for which he had no authority The circumstances seemed to him to justify the act But he gained the divine disapprobation and lost his kingdom for the blunder As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling And he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him And Saul said Bring hither a burnt-offering to me and peace-offerings And he offered the burnt-offering And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-

9

offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him And Samuel said What hast thou done And Saul said Because I saw that the people were scattered from me and that thou camest not within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash therefore said I The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal and I have not made supplication unto the Lord I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt-offering And Samuel said to Saul Thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee

(6) I Chron 137 8 1511-15 Uzza and the ark and Davidrsquos subsequent obedience The Levites or more particularly the Kohathites were expressly commanded to bear the ark The manner of bearing it was also commanded Rings were appended through which staves were run These poles covered with gold were to be supported on the shoulders of the bearers They were forbidden to touch the ark upon pain of death After that the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die Such was Godrsquos command In transporting it from the house of Abinadab David infringed the divine command by directing the ark to be borne on a cart drawn by oxen Then when the animals stumbled Uzza with the intention of saving the ark from falling touched it with his hand He was instantly killed for his pious disobedience And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart And David and all Israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumbled And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God The offence was the more inexcusable because the staves were never detached from the ark and it is not at all likely that the Philistines who had been subjected to so severe a treatment while they had it in their possession had ventured to steal them And it deserves consideration that those heathen had not been killed for handling the ark while for doing the same thing Godrsquos people who should have known better were taught an awful lesson

The magnificent demonstration suffered a disastrous arrest and the king of Israel sobered by the warning he had received returned home to do what he ought to have done beforemdashto study the law of God Having accomplished this neglected office he makes a second attempt to remove the sacred symbol of Godrsquos covenant to Jerusalem but in a different fashion from the

10

former Let us hear the record And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests and for the Levites for Uriel Asaiah and Joel Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab and said unto them Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it For because ye did it not at the first the Lord our God made a breach upon us for that we sought him not after the due order So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel And the children of the Levites bare the ark upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord It merits notice that when the ark was to be removed and instated in its place in the temple which was about to be dedicated Solomon caused the due order to be observed And all the elders of Israel came and the Levites took up the ark And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the congregation and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle these did the priests and the Levites bring up And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place2 The history of this matter enforces the impressive lesson that we are not at liberty to use our own judgment and to act without a divine warrant in regard to things of Godrsquos appointment

(7) 2 Chron 2616-21 King Uzziah officiating as a priest God had given no warrant to a king to act as priest and Uzziah arrogantly undertook without such warrant to discharge sacerdotal functions The consequences of his impiety are vividly depicted in the following record But when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him fourscore priests of the Lord that were valiant men and they withstood Uzziah the king and said unto him It appertaineth not unto thee Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for thou hast trespassed neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God Then Uzziah was wroth and had a censer in his hand to burn incense and while he was wroth with the priests the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked upon him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence yea himself hasted also to go out because the Lord had smitten him And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death and dwelt in a several house being a leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord

(8) 2 Chron 283-5 King Ahaz doubly offending as to function and place He performed priestly functions without a divine warrant and performed them in places which God had not appointed For this wicked self-assertion he was visited with divine vengeance Moreover he

2 2 Chron 5457

11

burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of them captives and brought them to Damascus And he was also delivered into the hands of the king of Israel who smote him with a great slaughter

(9) The jealousy of God for the principle of a divine warrant for everything in his worship is most conspicuously illustrated in New Testament times by the tremendous judgments which befell the Jewish people for perpetuating without such a warrant the typical ritual of the temple-service Until the great atoning sacrifice was offered they had a positive warrant from God for the observance of that order But when that sacrifice had been offered the veil of the temple had been rent in twain and the Holy Ghost had been copiously poured out at the inauguration of a new dispensation the positive warrant for the temple-worship was withdrawn This Stephen insisted on before the Council and the illustrious witness for Christ was murdered for his testimony He charged that when their fathers had no warrant to worship sacrificially except at the temple they had persisted in observing that worship elsewhere and now that God had withdrawn the warrant to worship at the temple they demanded the right to worship there Ye do always said the glorious servant of Jesus resist the Holy Ghost For this sin by which they endorsed their rejection of their Messiah and Saviour their church-state and national polity were demolished and they after the experience of an unparalleled tribulation were scattered to the four winds of heaven Have we not the evidence before us at this day

The mighty principle has thus been established by an appeal to the didactic statements of Godrsquos word and to special instances recorded in scriptural history that a divine warrant is required for everything in the faith and practice of the Church that whatsoever is not in the Scriptures commanded either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence is forbidden The special application of this principle to the worship of God as illustrated in the concrete examples which have been furnished cannot escape the least attentive observation God is seen manifesting a most vehement jealousy in protecting the purity of his worship Any attempt to assert the judgment the will the taste of man apart from the express warrant of his Word and to introduce into his worship human inventions devices and methods was overtaken by immediate retribution and rebuked by the thunderbolts of his wrath Nor need we wonder at this for the service which the creature professes to render to God reaches its highest and most formal expression in the worship which is offered him In this act the majesty of the Most High is directly confronted The worshipper presents himself face to face with the infinite Sovereign

12

of heaven and earth and assumes to lay at his feet the sincerest homage of the heart In the performance of such an act to violate divine appointments or transcend divine prescription to affirm the reason of a sinful creature against the wisdom the will of a sinful creature against the authority of God is deliberately to flaunt an insult in his face and to hurl an indignity against his throne What else could follow but the flash of divine indignation It is true that in the New Testament dispensation the same swift and visible arrest of this sin is not the ordinary rule But the patience and forbearance of God can constitute no justification of its commission Its punishment if it be not repented of is only deferred Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil while the delayed justice of God is gathering to itself indignation to burst forth like an overwhelming tempest in the dreadful day of wrath

The principle that has been emphasized is in direct opposition to that maintained by Romanists and Prelatists and I regret to say by lax Presbyterians that what is not forbidden in the Scriptures is permitted The Church of England in her twentieth article concedes to the church a power to decree rites and ceremonies with this limitation alone upon its exercise that it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to Godrsquos written word3 The principle of the discretionary power of the church in regard to things not commanded by Christ in his Word was the chief fountain from which flowed the gradually increasing tide of corruptions that swept the Latin church into apostasy from the gospel of Godrsquos grace And as surely as causes produce their appropriate effects and history repeats itself in obedience to that law any Protestant church which embodies that principle in its creed is destined sooner or later to experience a similar fate The same too may be affirmed of a church which formally rejects it and practically conforms to it The reason is plain The only bridle that checks the degenerating tendency of the churchmdasha tendency manifested in all agesmdashis the Word of God for the Spirit of grace Himself ordinarily operates only in connection with that Word If this

3 Some curious and remarkable statements have been made with reference to this article When in 1808 the question of the introduction of instrumental music into public worship was before the Presbytery of Glasgow the Rev Dr Begg father of the late Dr James Begg published a treatise on the Use of Organs in which the following statement is attributed to the Rev Alexander Hislop The Church of England has admitted into its articles this principle that it belongs to lsquothe churchrsquo of her own authority to lsquodecree rites and ceremoniesrsquo (Article 20 ) As a matter of historical fact this principle was never agreed to by the Convocation that adopted the Thirty-nine Articles this sentence being found neither in the first printed edition of the articles nor in the draft of them that passed the Convocation and which is still in existence with the autograph signatures of the members but it is believed to have been surreptitiously inserted by the hand of Queen Elizabeth herself who had much of the over-bearing spirit of her father Henry VIII and who as head of the church which the English constitution made her was determined to have a pompous worship under her ecclesiastical control In support of this statement reference is made to authorities in Presbyterian Review July 1843 The Use of Organs etc by James Begg DD (p 150) See also Bannermanrsquos Church of Christ Vol I p 339

13

restraint be discarded the downward lapse is sure The words of the great theologian John Owenmdashand the British Isles have produced no greatermdashare solemn and deserve to be seriously pondered The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God either as to matter or manner beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry of all the confusion blood persecution and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world

In view of such considerations as these confirmed as they are by the facts of all past history it is easy to see how irrelevant and baseless is the taunt flung by high churchmen ritualists and latitudinarians of every stripe against the maintainers of the opposite principle that they are narrow-minded bigots who take delight in insisting upon trivial details The truth is exactly the other way The principle upon which this cheap ridicule is cast is simple broad majestic It affirms only the things that God has commanded the institutions and ordinances that he has prescribed and besides this discharges only a negative office which sweeps away every trifling invention of manrsquos meretricious fancy It is not the supporters of this principle but their opponents who delight in insisting upon crossings genuflexions and bowings to the east upon vestments altars and candles upon organs and cornets and the dear antiphonies that so bewitch their prelates and their chapters with the goodly echo they make in fine upon all that finical trumpery which inherited from the woman clothed in scarlet marks the trend backward to the Rubicon and the seven-hilled mart of souls

But whatever others may think or do Presbyterians cannot forsake this principle without the guilt of defection from their own venerable standards and from the testimonies sealed by the blood of their fathers Among the principles that the Reformers extracted from the rubbish of corruption and held up to light again none were more comprehensive far-reaching and profoundly reforming than this It struck at the root of every false doctrine and practice and demanded the restoration of the true Germany has been infinitely the worse because of Lutherrsquos failure to apply it to the full Calvin enforced it more fully The great French Protestant Church with the exception of retaining a liturgical relic of popery gave it a grand application and France suffered an irreparable loss when she dragooned almost out of existence the body that maintained it John Knox stamped it upon the heart of the Scottish Church and it constituted the glory of the English Puritans Alas that it is pasting into decadence in the Presbyterian churches of England Scotland and America What remains but that those who still see it and cling to it as to something dearer than life itself should continue to utter however feebly however inoperatively their unchanging testimony to its truth It is the acropolis of the churchrsquos liberties the palladium of her purity That gone nothing will be left to hope but to strain its gaze towards the dawn of the millennial day Thenmdashwe are entitled to expectmdasha

14

more thorough-going and glorious reformation will be effected than any that has blessed the church and the world since the magnificent propagation of Christianity by the labors of the inspired apostles themselves

15

II

ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the Jewish dispensation God was pleased to proceed in accordance with the great principle which has been signalized in regard to the introduction of instrumental music into the public worship of his people He kept the ordering of this part of his formal and instituted worship in his own hands There is positive proof that it was never made an element of that worship except by his express command Without his warrant it was excluded only with it was it employed

1 Let us notice the operation of this principle with reference to the tabernacle-worship

Moses received the mode of constructing the tabernacle and the order of its worship by divine revelation See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount It will be admitted that the instructions thus divinely given descended to the most minute detailsmdashthe sort of fabrics and skins to be used and their diverse colors the pins the ouches and the taches the ablutions the vestments and the actions of the officiating priests and Levites the ingredients of the holy ointment and the incense the parts the arrangements the instruments of worshipmdashto everything connected with the tabernacle these specific directions referred Of course if God had intended instrumental music to be employed it would have been included in these particular directions the instruments would have been specified for its performance and regulations enjoined for its use

What now are the facts No directions are given respecting instruments of music Two instruments of sound are provided for but they were of such a character as to make it impracticable to use them ordinarily as accompaniments of the voice in singing The record is And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Make thee two trumpets of silver of a whole piece shalt thou make them that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly and for the journeying of the camps And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you thou shalt blow an alarm with the trumpets and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies Also in the days of your gladness and in your solemn days and in the beginnings of your months ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings that they may be to you for a memorial before your God I am the Lord your God The blowing of these trumpets as a signal for marching or for going to war had certainly nothing to do with worship neither did the call of the congregation to assemble belong to the performance of worship any more than

16

a church bell now the ringing of which ceases when the services begin There is nothing to show that the blowing of the trumpets on festival days and at the beginning of months over the offerings was accompanied by singing on the part of priests and Levites There is no mention of that fact and Jewish tradition opposes the supposition Moreover it is almost certain that the blowing of trumpets on such occasions was a representative act performed by the priests and that consequently it was not accompanied by the singing of the congregation It is true that there is one recorded exception (2 Chron 512 13) which occurred however when the tabernacle had given way to the temple At the dedication of the latter edifice the priests blew the trumpets at the same time that the Levites sang and played upon instruments of music so as to make one sound but it is evident that on that great occasion of rejoicing what was aimed at was not musical harmony but a powerful crash of jubilant sound We are shut up to the conclusion that there was nothing in the tabernacle-worship as ordered by Moses which could be justly characterized as instrumental music

This absence of instrumental music from the services of the tabernacle continued not only during the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert but after their entrance into the promised land throughout the protracted period of the Judges the reign of Saul and a part of Davidrsquos This is a noteworthy fact Although David was a lover of instrumental music and himself a performer upon the harp it was not until some time after his reign had begun that this order of things was changed and as we shall see changed by divine command Let us hear the scriptural record (1 Chron 231-6) So when David was old and full of days he made Solomon his son king over Israel And he gathered together all the princes of Israel with the priests and the Levites Now the Levites were numbered by the age of thirty years and upward and their number by their polls man by man was fifty and eight thousand of which twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and six thousand were officers and judges moreover four thousand were porters and four thousand praised the Lord with the instruments which I made said David to praise therewith And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi namely Gershon Kohath and Merari Now how did David come to make this alteration in the Mosaic order which had been established by divine revelation For the answer let us again consult the sacred record (1 Chron 2811-13 19) Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch and of the houses thereof and of the treasuries thereof and of the inner parlors thereof and of the place of the mercy-seat and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord and of all the chambers round about of the treasuries of the house of God and of the treasuries of the dedicated things also for the courses of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord All this said David the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me and all the works of this pattern 2 Chron 2925 26 And he [Solomon] set the Levites in the house of the Lord

17

with cymbals with psalteries and with harps according to the commandment of David and of Gad the kingrsquos seer and of Nathan the prophet for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets

In the light of these statements of Godrsquos Word several things are made evident which challenge our serious attention First instrumental music never was divinely warranted as an element in the tabernacle-worship until David received inspired instructions to introduce it as preparatory to the transition which was about to be effected to the more elaborate ritual of the temple Secondly when the temple was to be built and its order of worship to be instituted David received a divine revelation in regard to it just as Moses had concerning the tabernacle with its ordinances Thirdly this direct revelation to David was enforced upon Solomon and upon the priests and Levites by inspired communications touching the same subject from the prophets Gad and Nathan Fourthly instrumental music would not have been constituted an element in the temple-worship had not God expressly authorized it by his command The public worship of the tabernacle up to the time when it was to be merged into the temple had been a stranger to it and so great an innovation could have been accomplished only by divine authority Godrsquos positive enactment grounded the propriety of the change

Is it not clear that the great principle that whatsoever is not commanded by God either expressly or impliedly in relation to the public worship of his house is forbidden meets here a conspicuous illustration The bearing of all this upon the Christian church is as striking as it is obvious If under a dispensation dominantly characterized by external appointments instrumental music could not be introduced into the worship of Godrsquos sanctuary except in consequence of a warrant furnished by him how can a church existing under the far simpler and more spiritual dispensation of the gospel venture without such a warrant to incorporate it into its public services and that no such warrant can be pleaded will be made apparent as the argument expands

2 Against the conclusiveness of this argument it is objected that the Israelites were accustomed to use instrumental music at their option and that especially was this the case on occasions of public rejoicing when thanksgivings were by masses of the people rendered to God for signal benefits conferred by his delivering providence So far as the allegation concerns the employment of that kind of music in private or social life it is irrelevant to the scope of an argument which has reference explicitly and solely to its use in the public worship of Godrsquos house This will rule out many of the instances which are cited to prove the untenableness of the principle contended for in this discussion

There remains however another class of cases to which attention may be fairly directed cases in which public worship appeared to be offered Into this class fall the instances of Miriamrsquos

18

playing upon the timbrel at the Red Sea the welcome of Saul and David by the women with singing dancing and instrumental music the like instance of Jephthahrsquos daughter the accompanying of the ark by David and Israel with bands of music and the minstrelsy of the prophets to whom Saul joined himself In reply to the objection based upon these instances the general ground may be taken that they are examples not of church-worship but of public rejoicing on the part of the nation or of communities with the exception of the prophetsrsquo minstrelsy which will be separately considered Some special remarks are however pertinent in regard to them

In the first place it will be noticed from the account of the triumphant rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea that the men sang only Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake saying etc What can be gathered from this simple singing of the males of Israel in praise of God for their great deliverance in favor of instrumental music in worship it is rather difficult to see

In the second place it was Miriam and the women who used instruments of music on the occasion And Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances The argument of the objector proves too much If from this instance the legitimacy of employing instrumental music in the public worship of the Jewish Church is to be inferred so may the legitimacy of its use by women in that worship But the history of the appointments of that worship furnishes no evidence of the tenableness of the latter inference The contrary is proved Women were excluded from any prominent at least any official function in the services of Godrsquos house in the Mosaic dispensation4 It was the males of Israel who were commanded to repair to Jerusalem on those festival occasions when bursts of instrumental music were united with the singing of praise in the temple-worship Indeed so far from the women taking an active part in that worship it would seem to have been limited as to its outward expression in sounds to the priests and Levites who as the divinely appointed official representatives of the congregation sang and played on instruments of music The argument might do for a modern advocate of womanrsquos rights but it will hardly answer for the Jewish dispensation It is as barren of results as was Miriam herself of issue

In the third place it again proves too much if the word rendered dances is correctly translated It would prove that religious dancing was an element in the prescribed worship of Godrsquos people The consequence refutes the argument

4 The daughters of Heman mentioned I Chron 255 were not singers and performers on instruments in the public worship for they are not included in the enumeration of the courses which follows

19

But to return to the general position that the instances mentioned in the objection were those not of ecclesiastical worship but of national rejoicing Against this general view it is urged in reply that an unwarrantable distinction is made between the Jewish church and the Jewish nation This raises the question whether such a distinction is valid Were state and church identical Did the members of the state act as members of the church Did the members of the church act as members of the state It may be admitted that in the mainmdashthat is with certain exceptions such as the proselytes of righteousness for examplemdashthe nation and the church were numerically coincident Ordinarilymdashthat is with certain exceptionsmdashthe rite of circumcision designated one alike a member of the state and of the church But that these two institutes were identical that the functions of the one were the functions of the other considered as organisms is to my mind not susceptible of proof It would be unsuitable here to enter at large into this question but it lies across the track of the argument in hand and a brief consideration of it as it is not illogically interjected will not be regarded as impertinent The question is acutely and ably discussed by that great man George Gillespie in his Aaronrsquos Rod Blossoming I shall give a mere outline the bare heads of a part of his argument to prove that the Jewish state and church although in the main the same materially that is as to personal constituents were organically and formally distinct institutes and I do this the more readily because Gillespiersquos valuable work is now rare and difficult of access They are distinct

(1) In respect of laws The judicial law was given to the state the ceremonial law to the church

(2) In respect of acts The members of the state did not as such worship God and offer sacrifices in the temple etc and the members of the church did not as such inflict physical punishments

(3) In respect of controversies to be decided Some concerned the Lordrsquos matters and were to be ecclesiastically settled some the kingrsquos matters and were to be civilly decided

(4) In respect of officers The priests and Levites were church officers magistrates and judges were state officers

(5) In respect of continuance The Romans took away the Jewish state and civil government but the Jewish church and ecclesiastical government remained

(6) In respect of variation The constitution and government of the Jewish state underwent serious changes under different civil administrations but we cannot say that the church was remodelled as often as the state was

20

(7) In respect of members There were proselytes the proselytes of righteousness who were admitted to membership in the church with its privileges but were not entitled to the privileges of members of the state

(8) In respect of government In the prosecution of this argument to prove the distinctness of the Jewish church and state Gillespie takes the ground that there were two Sanhedrims one civil the other ecclesiastical and he cites as maintaining that view Zepperus Junius Piscator Wolfius Gerhard Godwin Bucerus Walaeus Pelargus Sopingius the Dutch Annotators Bertramus Apollonius Strigelius the professors of Groningen Reynolds Paget LrsquoEmpereur and Elias cited by Buxtorf

[This special argument Gillespie presses elaborately and acutely by more than a dozen separate considerations derived from Scripture But as the question has been ably debated on both sides by men learned in Jewish affairs no positive opinion is here expressed as to the conclusiveness of the proofs presented by the great Scotch divine]

(9) There was an ecclesiastical excommunication among the Jews different from the penalties inflicted by the criminal law of the state

Such are the ribs merely of a powerful argument in favor of the distinction between the Jewish state and church by one who had the reputation of being one of the astutest debaters in the Westminster Assembly of Divines That distinguished scholar Dr Joseph Addison Alexander expresses the opinion in his Primitive Church Offices that the Jewish state and church were one organization with two distinct classes of functions one civil and another ecclesiastical But Gillespie shows that the numerical components of some of the courts were different they consisted of different men Take either view however and the ends of this argument are met more conclusively upon Gillespiersquos it is true but conclusively upon both What the state as such did the church as such did not do and vice versa And if this be so it follows that the same thing holds in regard to the people What they did in a national capacity they did not necessarily do in an ecclesiastical When then Miriam and the women with her the women who welcomed Saul and David returning home in triumph the daughter of Jephthah celebrating her fatherrsquos victory and the mass of people who accompanied the ark in its transportation to Jerusalem played on instruments of music they were commemorating national events with appropriate national rejoicings They were not acting worship as the church or as the members of the church

In regard to the company of prophets whom Saul joined it is sufficient to say that they were in part the poets and minstrels of the nation and that as the incident occurred during the existence of the tabernacle the incontestable proof which has been already exhibited that

21

instrumental music such as that which they employed was not allowed in its worship is enough to sweep all ground from beneath the objection now considered against the operation of the great principle of limitation upon church worship for which I have contended This holds good whether or not the view which has been presented as to these prophets be correct Their playing on instruments had nothing to do with the public formally instituted worship of the house of the Lord

It has thus been shown by a direct appeal to the Scriptures that during all the protracted period in which the tabernacle was Godrsquos sanctuary the great principle was enforced that only what God commands is permitted and what he does not command is forbidden in the public worship of his house Moses with all his wisdom the Judges with all their intrepidity Saul with all his waywardness and self-will David the sweet Psalmist of Israel with all his skill in the musical art did not any of them venture to violate that principle and introduce into the public services of Godrsquos house the devices of their imagination or the inventions of their taste The lesson is certainly impressive coming as it does from that distant age and it behooves those who live in a dispensation this side of the cross of Calvary and the day of Pentecost to show cause beyond a peradventure why they are discharged from the duty of obedience to the divine will in this vitally important matter

3 The next step in this argument is to show that no musical instruments were used in the synagogue-worship

As this is almost universally admitted no extended argument is needed to prove it It might have been expected from the jealousy which God had always peculiarly manifested in enforcing the principle that without an express warrant from him nothing was to be introduced into the public worship of his people and especially from the facts already emphasized that no instruments of music were allowed to be employed in the tabernacle and that they were included in the service at the temple only in consequence of explicit divine instructions to that effect it might have been expected that instrumental music would not have been incorporated into the worship of the Jews on ordinary Sabbath days not embraced in the three national festivals This presumption is confirmed by the facts of the case

The writers who have most carefully investigated Jewish antiquities and have written learnedly and elaborately in regard to the synagogue concur in showing that its worship was destitute of instrumental music What singing there was and there was not much of it in proportion to the other elements of worship was plain and simple In his great work On the Ancient Synagogue

22

Vitringa shows5 that there were only two instruments of sound used in connection with the synagogue and that these were employed not in worship or along with it as an accompaniment but as publishing signalsmdashfirst for proclaiming the new year secondly for announcing the beginning of the Sabbath thirdly for publishing the sentence of excommunication and fourthly for heralding fasts These were their sole uses There were no sacrifices over which they were to be blown as in the tabernacle and temple And from the nature of the instruments it is plain that they could not have accompanied the voice in singing They were only of two kindsmdashtrumpets (tubae) and ramsrsquo horns or cornets (buccinae) The former were straight the latter curved Nor is it to be supposed that the cornet like the modern instrument of that name was susceptible of modulation and therefore of accompanying vocal melody It had but one note and was so easy to be blown that a child could sound it Further they were for the most part used not even in connection with the synagogue buildings but were blown from the roofs of houses so as to be heard at a distance Enough has been said to prove that no instrumental music entered into the services of the Jewish synagogue6

The elements of worship in the Mosaic dispensation were of two kinds

(1) The generic or essential Those observed in the synagogue were the reading and exposition of Godrsquos Word exhortation prayers accompanied with singing if the common recitation by the people of parts of the Psalms can be so characterized and the contribution of alms Without here raising the question whether synagogues had an existence prior to the Babylonian exile one would risk little in taking the ground that during all the time of the churchrsquos development in the past Godrsquos people had been accustomed to meet on Sabbath days for engagement in these essential parts of divine worship The patriarchal dispensation being left out of account in which however every sentiment of piety and reverence the original institution of the seventh day as one of rest and the acquaintance of the Israelites with the law of the Sabbath before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law render it highly probable that such a practice was maintained a few reasons will be intimated in favor of its maintenance during the period of the Jewish economy

First The fourth commandment made the sacred observance of every Sabbath day obligatory It is not reasonable to suppose that the law contemplated the merely individual and private keeping holy of the day

5 De Synag Vetere Lib I Pars i Chap 10 Lightfoot on Matt vi 2 See also Josephus Ant Jud Lib iii Chap 12 6 The orthodox Jews even to the present day [1888] oppose its use in the synagogue The writer knew a congregation in Charleston SC to be rent in twain in consequence of an attempt to introduce an organ

23

Secondly The Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness were accustomed to worship every Sabbath day in mass at the tabernacle It was accessible from every part of the encampment which was around it on every side The proof of this is given in Lev 233 Six days Shall work be done but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest an holy convocation The prescriptive usage of meeting for worship on every Sabbath was thus established during their forty yearsrsquo pilgrimage in the desert In all that time during which they held weekly assemblies let it also be observed they knew nothing of instrumental music It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that this habit ingrained into them in the early period of their national existence and consecrated by innumerable sacred and splendid associations would have ceased to be influential after their wanderings had ceased and they had been permanently located in the land of rest Such an innovation upon their customs could only have occurred in consequence either of a divine command enforcing the change or of a serious defection from their religious principles We know that neither of these causes operated to produce the supposed revolution in their habits of worship Upon their settlement in Canaan they were of course dispersed in consequence of their tribal distribution throughout the length and breadth of the country from Dan to Beersheba and as the tabernacle was necessarily at any particular time confined to one spot it was not accessible to congregations representing all Israel except upon the occasions of the prescribed national festivals What then were they doing on all the other Sabbaths of the year in their cities and towns villages and rural neighborhoods It cannot be supposed that on those Sabbaths they never met for worship7 This consideration is mightily enhanced by the fact that only the males of Israel were enjoined to attend the great annual festivals Were the women the mothers of Israel the trainers of children and youth left destitute of all public worship The supposition cannot be entertained Provision must have been made for their engagement in the stated public worship of their God

Thirdly The priests and Levites when not occupied in the discharge of their formal official duties at the temple were distributed through the land and there is evidence to show that they acted as teachers of schools Is it likely that ministers of religion would have educated the people in everything but the divine law or that they would have failed to assemble them on Sabbath days for the reception of religious instruction or that such instruction would have been unattended by worship It may be said that this amounts to no more than a presumption But if so it is a powerful presumption and is strongly confirmed by other considerations such as those that follow

7 Under every preceding dispensation the sanctity of the Sabbath had been a fundamental part of the revealed religion the synagogue worship goes back possibly to the captivity in Egypt certainly to the captivity in BabylonmdashBreckinridgersquos Subjec Theology p 530

24

Fourthly The Israelites were commanded to proclaim the incoming of the Sabbaths and the new moons by the blowing of trumpets That these seasons were observed with the solemn worship of assemblies is rendered almost certain by the passage in 2 Kings chapter 4 in which it is intimated that on those occasions the prophets were accustomed to hold meetings for instruction and worship The Shunammite whose son had been restored to life by Elisha having lost the child by death proposed to her husband to provide her with the necessaries for a journey to the prophet at Mount Carmel His reply was Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day It is neither new moon nor Sabbath The answer cannot be understood except upon the supposition here contended formdashnamely that the Sabbaths and new moons were seasons of gathering for instruction and worship and it is certain that Carmel was not Jerusalem and that weekly Sabbaths and the beginnings of months did not occur only three times a year

Fifthly In Psalm 748 the Psalmist in view of the devastation of the country by its enemies thus laments They said in their hearts Let us destroy them together they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land It is not necessary to suppose that the buildings here rendered synagogues exactly corresponded with those erected for worship after the return from the Babylonish captivity but they were places for worship8 Possibly they were as Prideaux and others suggest uncovered places of worship proseuchae but they were buildings else how could they have been burned And that they were not the halls adjoining the temple as some conjecture is proved by the statement that they were throughout the land All the synagogues of God in the land Were the temple buildings ubiquitous In this exposition not a few eminent commentators agree Dr McCurdy in Langersquos Commentary on the place says that these buildings were places of meeting in different parts of the land Calvin remarks I readily take the Hebrew moadim in the sense of synagogues because he says all the sanctuaries and speaks expressly of the whole land Adam Clarke observes The word moadey which we translate synagogues may be taken in a more general sense and mean any places where religious assemblies were held and that such places and assemblies did exist long before the Babylonish captivity is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture9

Dr Plumptre in the article on synagogues in Smithrsquos Dictionary of the Bible citing Vitringa On the Synagogue (pp 271 ff) says Jewish writers have claimed for their synagogues a very remote antiquity In well-nigh every place where the phrase before the Lord appears they recognize in it a known sanctuary a fixed place of meeting and therefore a synagogue This

8 See Hornersquos Introduction vol ii p 102 for a confirmation of this view It is there shown to have been advocated by Josephus and Philo and also by Grotius Ernesti Whitby Doddridge and Lardner 9 George Gillespie says After the tribes were settled in the land of promise synagogues were built in the case of an urgent necessity because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place that God had chosen that his name might dwell there Eng Pop Cerem p 116

25

view is taken in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan On the one hand says Dr Plumptre it is probable that if new moons and Sabbaths were observed at all [it was shown above that they were] they must have been attended by some celebration apart from as well as at the tabernacle or the temple On the other so far as we find traces of such local worship it seems to have fallen too readily into a fetich religion sacrifices to ephods and teraphim in groves and on high places offering nothing but a contrast to the lsquoreasonable servicersquo the prayers psalms instruction in the law of the later synagogue This to some extent not universally is lamentably true but the abuse proves the legitimate use of these stated seasons and places of public worship separately from the tabernacle and temple services

The gatherings of the elders during the exile for instruction by the prophet which are repeatedly mentioned in Ezekiel infer that the practice of holding assemblies for worship and the hearing of the law antedated the captivity The exiles carried the custom with them The words in Ezek 1115 16 seem to imply that God manifested his gracious presence in these meetings of his people as in little sanctuaries somewhat as in former and better times he had done at the greater sanctuaries in their native land This view is supported remarks the learned author who has been quoted by the LXX the Vulgate and the Authorized Version It is confirmed by the general consensus of Jewish interpreters

If these arguments have availed to prove that the people of Israel were accustomed to hold stated meetings for worship apart from the services of the tabernacle and the temple the well-ascertained practice of the post-exilian synagogues clearly establishes the absence of instrumental music from those weekly assemblies For had that kind of music been employed in those meetings it would inevitably have been continued in the synagogue-worship Every conceivable consideration would have opposed its eliminationmdashthe powerful force of long-continued precedents the prescriptive usages of the past hallowed by sacred associations the conservative sentiment which resists a revolutionary innovation and more than all the demands of human taste and the requirements of an acknowledged artistic standard But it is certain that no instrumental music was used in the worship of the later synagogue The argument is well-nigh irresistible

If it be contended that instrumental music which had previously existed was purged out of the regular worship of the Jews by the post-exilian reformation the question at issue is given up For if the Jews reformed the worship of the church by abandoning instrumental music much more should it have been discarded at the greater reformation inaugurated by Christianity Otherwise it would be conceded that the Christian Church was less pure in its worship less thoroughly reformed than was the Jewish Church in its later and better state

26

It has thus been shown that the essential parts of divine worship were maintained by the people of God in their ordinary Sabbath-day worship during the Jewish dispensation and it is the purpose of this discussion as it shall be developed to evince the fact that only these essential elements of worship passed over into the Christian dispensation They are permanent and like the covenant of grace in its generic and essential features as contradistinguished to the specific and accidental were designed to endure unchanged through all dispensations

(2) The second kind of elements of worship in the Mosaic economy was the Specific or Accidental which was Typical and Symbolical and as such temporary in its nature10 Warburton says that types and symbols are generically the same in that they are both representations but they are specifically different in that the type represents something future the symbol something past or present Hence he regarded the sacraments of the New Testament as symbols Thornwell observes that they differ from each other in the circumstance that types teach by analogy and symbols by expressive signs Without pausing to discuss the nature of the specific differences between them or to consider the question whether some of the elements in the Jewish ritual service were not at the same time both typical and symbolical I proceed to show that the types of the temple-worship did not as is too often carelessly assumed have exclusive reference to the sacrifice of Christ but that some of them represented beforehand the effects to be produced in the New Testament dispensation by the Holy Ghost and I will then attempt further to show that the instrumental music of the temple-worship fell into the latter class and therefore as having fulfilled its typical and temporary office passed away and vanished upon the introduction of the Christian economy But before these points are developed it is requisite that a few things be premised

In the first place no element in the synagogue-worship was typical and temporary This is too evident to require argument The reading and exposition of the divine Word hortatory addresses the singing of psalms and the contribution of alms are elements of worship which cannot be regarded as types foreshadowing substantial realities to come They belong to the class essential and permanent

In the second place the essential and permanent elements of worship as fundamental to all public religious service entered of course into the temple-worship In this respect there was no difference between the worship of the temple and that of the synagogue

10 Let it be observed that in making this distinction between essential and accidental elements of worship by the accidental are meant elements divinely commanded With the Reformed and Puritan divines I utterly repudiate the distinction as used by Prelatists to justify such accidental elements as human wisdom or church authority adds without divine warrant to the essential elements of worship

27

In the third place whatever element of worship was absent from the synagogue and present in the temple was typical or symbolical in its character Having in common what was essential and permanent the specific difference between them lay in the possession by one of the accidental and temporary and the non-possession by the other of the same Now the only elements falling into this latter class were the typical and symbolical These were embraced in the service of the temple and excluded from that of the synagogue Consequently as instrumental music was not included in the worship of the synagogue but was in that of the temple it must be regarded as having been either typical or symbolical Symbolical it cannot be considered it must therefore have been typical If so the necessity is recognized of attempting in the progress of this discussion to show of what it was typical

In the fourth place some of the elements of the temple-service were directly and solely typical of Christ especially as a priest and as the atoning sacrifice to be offered for sin Others were typical only of the Holy Ghost and still others were typical at one and the same time both of Christ and the Holy Spirit To use thc technically accurate language of theology the impetration or acquisition of salvation is attributed to Christ the application of it to the Holy Spirit But the grace which applies the benefits secured by the work of Christ is closely related to the work by which they were acquired Indeed it is itself acquired by the merit and intercession of the Redeemer They therefore suppose and implicate each other Consequently some of the types have a double reference to both When they immediately represent the Holy Spirit they at the same time mediately represent Christ Some of the positions taken in these preliminary remarks may be justly regarded and carried along with the discussion as assumptions demanding no proof and others will be substantiated as the argument proceeds

First The offices and work of the Holy Spirit were as clearly and definitely predicted and promised in the Old Testament Scriptures as were those of Christ The truth is that they cannot possibly be disjoined Neither would be operative to salvation without the other The whole Old Testament revelation so far as it was evangelical bore a twofold reference to the blood and the water to the meritorious acquisition of salvation by the righteousness and atoning death of Christ and its efficacious application by the grace of the Holy Ghost In the conception of redemption which we find everywhere in the Bible justification and sanctification are never dissociated They are ever represented as the complementary and equally necessary factors of one whole and complete salvation This is the very genius of the gospel as well before as after the death of the Son of God As it was proclaimed to our first parents revealed to Abel Enoch and Noah and as the apostle expressly testifies preached before to Abraham it was essentially promissory in its nature The same promissory character was still more fully disclosed in the features of the Mosaic dispensation in the Psalms and Prophets and as I hope to show in the typical rites and ceremonies of the temple-service That the person and offices

28

of the Holy Spirit were distinctly known to believers under the old dispensation is proved by utterances in the Psalms a book which represents the experience of Godrsquos true people in every condition of their history In the 51st Psalm we have the prayers Take not thy Holy Spirit from me Uphold me with thy free Spirit and in the 143rd Thy Spirit is good lead me to the land of uprightness Isaiah (chap 6310) says They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit which words as they were spoken of the house of Israel suppose that they knew or ought to have known the Holy Spirit as their guide It may be added that the sacred historians of the Old Testament over and over again assert with reference to the heroic worthies of that dispensation that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them All this goes to show that the promises which related to the work of the Holy Spirit at a future period of the churchrsquos development were not unintelligible by those to whom they were delivered

Let us cite some of those declarations which point to the work of the Spirit in the new dispensation Isa 3215-17 After describing the desolation that would be visited upon the land of Israel the prophet says Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever Isa 421 Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Isa 443 4 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water courses Isa 5919 20 21 So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seedrsquos seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever This prophecy in regard to the Spirit resisting a flood of enemies is referred by the Rabbins to the coming of the Messiah Ezek 3625-27 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them Ezek 3713 14 And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves O my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live and I shall place you in your own land then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it saith the Lord Joel

29

228 29 And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit For the reference of this glorious promise to New Testament times we have the inspired testimony of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost when it was measurably but remarkably fulfilled In close connection with the promise that a fountain shall be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness Zechariah utters also the promise 1210 And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications It matters little whether or not with some we take the word spirit here to indicate a disposition That disposition can be produced only by the Holy Spirit The apostle Paul it deserves to be considered terms the Spirit that holy Spirit of promise Eph 113 and in Gal 313 14 he speaks very explicitly about this matter Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith How closely does he couple the atoning work of Christ and the applying work of the Spirit And how clearly does he enounce the fact that the Spirit as well as Christ was promised in the ancient Scriptures and the early revelations made to the people of God

Secondly The offices of the Holy Ghost together with their saving and joy-imparting effects were typified as well as the priestly work and expiatory death of Christ in the services which were peculiar to the temple In view of what has been shown concerning the clearness and fulness with which the work of the Spirit in New Testament times is announced in the prophetical writings we would be prepared to find this true upon an examination of the temple types nor will we be disappointed by such an investigation Those types as well as the prophecies proclaimed the gospel They powerfully preached the whole salvation of the gospelmdashthe blood and the water justification and sanctification How could it be otherwise As God intended by these typical elements to represent as by object-lessons the scheme of redemption to his ancient people who lived before its actual achievement is it reasonable to suppose that he would have furnished an imperfect and inadequate pre-figuration of its essential parts Would he have omitted all instruction beforehand in regard to the mode of its application It is difficult to conceive how any theologian can fail to see the obvious foreshadowing in the temple furniture and service of the grace and work of the ever-blessed Spirit I shall select for comment only those elements which appear with the greatest clearness to typify the offices of the Holy Spirit

The Washing with Water Why was water employed as a type if not to signify what the New Testament Scriptures so unmistakably characterize under that figure Except a man said the

30

Lord Jesus be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 35) The preposition here is omitted before the Spirit in the original and the words may well be rendered of water even the Spirit At least this must be the meaning in the judgment of any one who would not co-ordinate external water with the almighty grace of the Holy Ghost in the new creation of the soul And to talk of onersquos being spiritually born in part of an outward symbol is to speak unintelligibly Paul several times uses washing and water to signify cleansing by the Holy Spirit Eph 526 That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the washing of water by the word I Cor 611 And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Tit 35 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and [or even the] renewing of the Holy Ghost John emphasizes the issue of water and blood from the side of Jesus on the cross and declares This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth And there are three that bear witness in earth the Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one (John 2034 I John 56 8) The Spirit bears witness both to justification and sanctification It is he who sanctifies and he who bears witness with his own work in the soul The analogy then between the type and the anti-type as to the offices respectively discharged leads to the conclusion that the lavers and ablutions of the temple typified the grace of the Holy Spirit This view is far from being singular It has the support of the illustrious Lightfoot The end of it [the laver] was he says to wash the hands and feet of the priests but the most ultimate end was to signify the washing and purifying by the Spirit of grace which is so oft called water in the Scripture And so the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice and the washing in the water of the laver did read the two great divinity lectures of washing by the blood of Christ from guilt and by the grace of God from filthiness and pollution11 This witness is true and his learning and piety render it superfluous to cite the testimony of others to the same purpose

The Anointing Oil Is it not clear from Scripture that this typified the Holy Spirit Under the Old Testament economy priests prophets and kings were anointed Did the anointing oil of the temple signify that Christ would anoint himself or rather did it not prefigure his anointing by the Holy Ghost He is the Christ Godrsquos anointed One and the holy Unction was the Spirit of wisdom power and grace Acts 1038 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power This direct testimony is sufficient The anointing oil of the temple discharged the typical office of prefiguring the holy Unction with which Jesus was anointed and who coming from him upon all his people teacheth them all things (1 John 227) This view also is sustained by the authority of the distinguished scholar who has already been cited The

11 Works Vol ix p 419 London 1823 Fairbairn takes substantially the same view Typology of Scripture Vol ii pp 212 213 See also MrsquoEwen Types Bk iii sect 3

6

ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition Matt 2819 20 Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Col 220-23 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances (touch not taste not handle not which are all to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the body not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh 2 Tim 316 17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished unto all good works Rev 2218 19 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and out of the things which are written in this book

These solemn statements and awful warnings teach us the lesson that to introduce any devices and inventions of our own into the doctrine government or worship of the church is to add to the words of God and to fail in maintaining the principles and truths or in complying with the institutions and ordinances delivered to us in the Scriptures is to take away from the words of God The Romanists for example who hold the doctrine of transubstantiation and observe the sacrifice of the mass add to Godrsquos words and the Quakers who maintain the co-ordinate authority of immediate revelations of new original truth with the inspired Oracles and neglect the observance of the sacraments both add to and take away from them And in like manner those who import instrumental music into the ordained worship of the New Testament Church transcend the warrant of Scripture and add to the words which Christ our Lord has commanded

3 There are concrete instances recorded in the Scriptures which graphically illustrate the same great principle

(1) Gen 4 Cain and his offering The brothers Cain and Abel had been in childhood beyond all doubt instructed by their parents in the knowledge of the first promise of redemption to be accomplished by atonement They had we have every reason to believe often seen their father offering animal sacrifices in the worship of God To this mode of worship they had been accustomed Cain the type of rationalists and fabricators of rites and ceremonies in the house of the Lord consulted his own wisdom and taste and ventured to offer in Godrsquos worship the fruit of the groundmdashan un-bloody sacrifice while Abel conforming to the appointments and prescribed usages in which he had been trained expressed his faith and obedience by offering a

7

lamb Abelrsquos worship was accepted and Cainrsquos rejected And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect Thus in the immediate family of Adam we behold a signal and typical instance of self-assertion and disregard of divine prescriptions in the matter of worship This was swiftly followed by Godrsquos disapprobation and then came the development of sin in the atrocious crime of fratricide and the banishment of the murderer from the communion of his family and the presence of his God

(2) Lev 101-3 Nadab and Abihu And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not1 And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Then Moses said unto Aaron This is it that the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified And Aaron held his peace These young men as the sons of Israelrsquos high priest were legitimately employed in discharging the appointed functions of the sacerdotal office But they presumed to add to Godrsquos commandments Exercising their own will in regard to the mode of his worship they did that which he did not command them and they were instantly killed for their wicked temerity

(3) Num 16 Korah Dathan and Abiram God had consecrated those descendants of Levi who sprang from Aaron to the priesthood while the remaining descendants of Levi were set apart to other offices pertaining to the service of the tabernacle Korah was a Levite but not a son of Aaron Dathan and Abiram were not even Levites but appear to have descended from Reuben When therefore these men asserting the claim that the whole congregation were entitled to rank with Moses and Aaron ventured to assume to themselves functions which God had restricted to a certain class they were overtaken by the swift indignation of Jehovah and perished in an awful manner The ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods They and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the congregation

(4) Num 20 Moses smiting the rock at Kadesh When on a previous occasion the Israelites were suffering from thirst God commanded Moses to smite the rock at Horeb This he did and water gushed forth abundantly The apostle Paul tells us that that rock typified Christ The typical teaching furnished by Moses then was that from the one death of Christ under the smiting of the law the grace of the Holy Ghost should proceed to satisfy the thirst of the soul

1 That is which he did not command them

8

Christ was to be smitten unto death only once Now again at Kadesh the Israelites suffer for want of water God commands Moses to speak unto the rock To this explicit command he rashly ventured to add He spoke to the people instead of the rock and he smote the rock and smote it twice He used his own judgment asserted his own will and taught the people falsely For this sin he and Aaron who concurred with him in its commission were excluded from entrance into the promised land And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother and speak ye to the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth his water and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock and he said unto them Hear now ye rebels must we fetch you water out of this rock And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them

We have here an inexpressibly affecting instance of the sin and folly of adding human inventions to the ordinances of Godrsquos appointment of the dreadful results that may follow from what men may conceive slight departures from obedience to the commands of God Not to speak of Aaron the accomplished orator the venerable saint the first anointed high priest of his people this incomparable man Moses in whom were blended all natural gifts and supernatural graces the deliverer the legislator the historian the poet the judge and the commander of Israel after having brought them out of Egypt conducted them through the parted waters of the Red Sea mediated between them and God amidst the terrors of Sinai led them through the horrors of the waste and howling desertmdashthis glorious man now in sight of the Jordan which like a thread separated them from the long-sought long-coveted goal of their hearts is doomed for one addition to Godrsquos command which no doubt seemed to him but a slight deviation from his instructions to die short of the promised land

(5) I Sam 13 Saul offering a burnt-offering at Gilgal The king had no command to officiate as priest Saul added to Godrsquos command and performed a function for which he had no authority The circumstances seemed to him to justify the act But he gained the divine disapprobation and lost his kingdom for the blunder As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling And he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him And Saul said Bring hither a burnt-offering to me and peace-offerings And he offered the burnt-offering And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-

9

offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him And Samuel said What hast thou done And Saul said Because I saw that the people were scattered from me and that thou camest not within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash therefore said I The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal and I have not made supplication unto the Lord I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt-offering And Samuel said to Saul Thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee

(6) I Chron 137 8 1511-15 Uzza and the ark and Davidrsquos subsequent obedience The Levites or more particularly the Kohathites were expressly commanded to bear the ark The manner of bearing it was also commanded Rings were appended through which staves were run These poles covered with gold were to be supported on the shoulders of the bearers They were forbidden to touch the ark upon pain of death After that the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die Such was Godrsquos command In transporting it from the house of Abinadab David infringed the divine command by directing the ark to be borne on a cart drawn by oxen Then when the animals stumbled Uzza with the intention of saving the ark from falling touched it with his hand He was instantly killed for his pious disobedience And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart And David and all Israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumbled And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God The offence was the more inexcusable because the staves were never detached from the ark and it is not at all likely that the Philistines who had been subjected to so severe a treatment while they had it in their possession had ventured to steal them And it deserves consideration that those heathen had not been killed for handling the ark while for doing the same thing Godrsquos people who should have known better were taught an awful lesson

The magnificent demonstration suffered a disastrous arrest and the king of Israel sobered by the warning he had received returned home to do what he ought to have done beforemdashto study the law of God Having accomplished this neglected office he makes a second attempt to remove the sacred symbol of Godrsquos covenant to Jerusalem but in a different fashion from the

10

former Let us hear the record And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests and for the Levites for Uriel Asaiah and Joel Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab and said unto them Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it For because ye did it not at the first the Lord our God made a breach upon us for that we sought him not after the due order So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel And the children of the Levites bare the ark upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord It merits notice that when the ark was to be removed and instated in its place in the temple which was about to be dedicated Solomon caused the due order to be observed And all the elders of Israel came and the Levites took up the ark And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the congregation and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle these did the priests and the Levites bring up And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place2 The history of this matter enforces the impressive lesson that we are not at liberty to use our own judgment and to act without a divine warrant in regard to things of Godrsquos appointment

(7) 2 Chron 2616-21 King Uzziah officiating as a priest God had given no warrant to a king to act as priest and Uzziah arrogantly undertook without such warrant to discharge sacerdotal functions The consequences of his impiety are vividly depicted in the following record But when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him fourscore priests of the Lord that were valiant men and they withstood Uzziah the king and said unto him It appertaineth not unto thee Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for thou hast trespassed neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God Then Uzziah was wroth and had a censer in his hand to burn incense and while he was wroth with the priests the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked upon him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence yea himself hasted also to go out because the Lord had smitten him And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death and dwelt in a several house being a leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord

(8) 2 Chron 283-5 King Ahaz doubly offending as to function and place He performed priestly functions without a divine warrant and performed them in places which God had not appointed For this wicked self-assertion he was visited with divine vengeance Moreover he

2 2 Chron 5457

11

burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of them captives and brought them to Damascus And he was also delivered into the hands of the king of Israel who smote him with a great slaughter

(9) The jealousy of God for the principle of a divine warrant for everything in his worship is most conspicuously illustrated in New Testament times by the tremendous judgments which befell the Jewish people for perpetuating without such a warrant the typical ritual of the temple-service Until the great atoning sacrifice was offered they had a positive warrant from God for the observance of that order But when that sacrifice had been offered the veil of the temple had been rent in twain and the Holy Ghost had been copiously poured out at the inauguration of a new dispensation the positive warrant for the temple-worship was withdrawn This Stephen insisted on before the Council and the illustrious witness for Christ was murdered for his testimony He charged that when their fathers had no warrant to worship sacrificially except at the temple they had persisted in observing that worship elsewhere and now that God had withdrawn the warrant to worship at the temple they demanded the right to worship there Ye do always said the glorious servant of Jesus resist the Holy Ghost For this sin by which they endorsed their rejection of their Messiah and Saviour their church-state and national polity were demolished and they after the experience of an unparalleled tribulation were scattered to the four winds of heaven Have we not the evidence before us at this day

The mighty principle has thus been established by an appeal to the didactic statements of Godrsquos word and to special instances recorded in scriptural history that a divine warrant is required for everything in the faith and practice of the Church that whatsoever is not in the Scriptures commanded either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence is forbidden The special application of this principle to the worship of God as illustrated in the concrete examples which have been furnished cannot escape the least attentive observation God is seen manifesting a most vehement jealousy in protecting the purity of his worship Any attempt to assert the judgment the will the taste of man apart from the express warrant of his Word and to introduce into his worship human inventions devices and methods was overtaken by immediate retribution and rebuked by the thunderbolts of his wrath Nor need we wonder at this for the service which the creature professes to render to God reaches its highest and most formal expression in the worship which is offered him In this act the majesty of the Most High is directly confronted The worshipper presents himself face to face with the infinite Sovereign

12

of heaven and earth and assumes to lay at his feet the sincerest homage of the heart In the performance of such an act to violate divine appointments or transcend divine prescription to affirm the reason of a sinful creature against the wisdom the will of a sinful creature against the authority of God is deliberately to flaunt an insult in his face and to hurl an indignity against his throne What else could follow but the flash of divine indignation It is true that in the New Testament dispensation the same swift and visible arrest of this sin is not the ordinary rule But the patience and forbearance of God can constitute no justification of its commission Its punishment if it be not repented of is only deferred Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil while the delayed justice of God is gathering to itself indignation to burst forth like an overwhelming tempest in the dreadful day of wrath

The principle that has been emphasized is in direct opposition to that maintained by Romanists and Prelatists and I regret to say by lax Presbyterians that what is not forbidden in the Scriptures is permitted The Church of England in her twentieth article concedes to the church a power to decree rites and ceremonies with this limitation alone upon its exercise that it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to Godrsquos written word3 The principle of the discretionary power of the church in regard to things not commanded by Christ in his Word was the chief fountain from which flowed the gradually increasing tide of corruptions that swept the Latin church into apostasy from the gospel of Godrsquos grace And as surely as causes produce their appropriate effects and history repeats itself in obedience to that law any Protestant church which embodies that principle in its creed is destined sooner or later to experience a similar fate The same too may be affirmed of a church which formally rejects it and practically conforms to it The reason is plain The only bridle that checks the degenerating tendency of the churchmdasha tendency manifested in all agesmdashis the Word of God for the Spirit of grace Himself ordinarily operates only in connection with that Word If this

3 Some curious and remarkable statements have been made with reference to this article When in 1808 the question of the introduction of instrumental music into public worship was before the Presbytery of Glasgow the Rev Dr Begg father of the late Dr James Begg published a treatise on the Use of Organs in which the following statement is attributed to the Rev Alexander Hislop The Church of England has admitted into its articles this principle that it belongs to lsquothe churchrsquo of her own authority to lsquodecree rites and ceremoniesrsquo (Article 20 ) As a matter of historical fact this principle was never agreed to by the Convocation that adopted the Thirty-nine Articles this sentence being found neither in the first printed edition of the articles nor in the draft of them that passed the Convocation and which is still in existence with the autograph signatures of the members but it is believed to have been surreptitiously inserted by the hand of Queen Elizabeth herself who had much of the over-bearing spirit of her father Henry VIII and who as head of the church which the English constitution made her was determined to have a pompous worship under her ecclesiastical control In support of this statement reference is made to authorities in Presbyterian Review July 1843 The Use of Organs etc by James Begg DD (p 150) See also Bannermanrsquos Church of Christ Vol I p 339

13

restraint be discarded the downward lapse is sure The words of the great theologian John Owenmdashand the British Isles have produced no greatermdashare solemn and deserve to be seriously pondered The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God either as to matter or manner beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry of all the confusion blood persecution and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world

In view of such considerations as these confirmed as they are by the facts of all past history it is easy to see how irrelevant and baseless is the taunt flung by high churchmen ritualists and latitudinarians of every stripe against the maintainers of the opposite principle that they are narrow-minded bigots who take delight in insisting upon trivial details The truth is exactly the other way The principle upon which this cheap ridicule is cast is simple broad majestic It affirms only the things that God has commanded the institutions and ordinances that he has prescribed and besides this discharges only a negative office which sweeps away every trifling invention of manrsquos meretricious fancy It is not the supporters of this principle but their opponents who delight in insisting upon crossings genuflexions and bowings to the east upon vestments altars and candles upon organs and cornets and the dear antiphonies that so bewitch their prelates and their chapters with the goodly echo they make in fine upon all that finical trumpery which inherited from the woman clothed in scarlet marks the trend backward to the Rubicon and the seven-hilled mart of souls

But whatever others may think or do Presbyterians cannot forsake this principle without the guilt of defection from their own venerable standards and from the testimonies sealed by the blood of their fathers Among the principles that the Reformers extracted from the rubbish of corruption and held up to light again none were more comprehensive far-reaching and profoundly reforming than this It struck at the root of every false doctrine and practice and demanded the restoration of the true Germany has been infinitely the worse because of Lutherrsquos failure to apply it to the full Calvin enforced it more fully The great French Protestant Church with the exception of retaining a liturgical relic of popery gave it a grand application and France suffered an irreparable loss when she dragooned almost out of existence the body that maintained it John Knox stamped it upon the heart of the Scottish Church and it constituted the glory of the English Puritans Alas that it is pasting into decadence in the Presbyterian churches of England Scotland and America What remains but that those who still see it and cling to it as to something dearer than life itself should continue to utter however feebly however inoperatively their unchanging testimony to its truth It is the acropolis of the churchrsquos liberties the palladium of her purity That gone nothing will be left to hope but to strain its gaze towards the dawn of the millennial day Thenmdashwe are entitled to expectmdasha

14

more thorough-going and glorious reformation will be effected than any that has blessed the church and the world since the magnificent propagation of Christianity by the labors of the inspired apostles themselves

15

II

ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the Jewish dispensation God was pleased to proceed in accordance with the great principle which has been signalized in regard to the introduction of instrumental music into the public worship of his people He kept the ordering of this part of his formal and instituted worship in his own hands There is positive proof that it was never made an element of that worship except by his express command Without his warrant it was excluded only with it was it employed

1 Let us notice the operation of this principle with reference to the tabernacle-worship

Moses received the mode of constructing the tabernacle and the order of its worship by divine revelation See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount It will be admitted that the instructions thus divinely given descended to the most minute detailsmdashthe sort of fabrics and skins to be used and their diverse colors the pins the ouches and the taches the ablutions the vestments and the actions of the officiating priests and Levites the ingredients of the holy ointment and the incense the parts the arrangements the instruments of worshipmdashto everything connected with the tabernacle these specific directions referred Of course if God had intended instrumental music to be employed it would have been included in these particular directions the instruments would have been specified for its performance and regulations enjoined for its use

What now are the facts No directions are given respecting instruments of music Two instruments of sound are provided for but they were of such a character as to make it impracticable to use them ordinarily as accompaniments of the voice in singing The record is And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Make thee two trumpets of silver of a whole piece shalt thou make them that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly and for the journeying of the camps And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you thou shalt blow an alarm with the trumpets and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies Also in the days of your gladness and in your solemn days and in the beginnings of your months ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings that they may be to you for a memorial before your God I am the Lord your God The blowing of these trumpets as a signal for marching or for going to war had certainly nothing to do with worship neither did the call of the congregation to assemble belong to the performance of worship any more than

16

a church bell now the ringing of which ceases when the services begin There is nothing to show that the blowing of the trumpets on festival days and at the beginning of months over the offerings was accompanied by singing on the part of priests and Levites There is no mention of that fact and Jewish tradition opposes the supposition Moreover it is almost certain that the blowing of trumpets on such occasions was a representative act performed by the priests and that consequently it was not accompanied by the singing of the congregation It is true that there is one recorded exception (2 Chron 512 13) which occurred however when the tabernacle had given way to the temple At the dedication of the latter edifice the priests blew the trumpets at the same time that the Levites sang and played upon instruments of music so as to make one sound but it is evident that on that great occasion of rejoicing what was aimed at was not musical harmony but a powerful crash of jubilant sound We are shut up to the conclusion that there was nothing in the tabernacle-worship as ordered by Moses which could be justly characterized as instrumental music

This absence of instrumental music from the services of the tabernacle continued not only during the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert but after their entrance into the promised land throughout the protracted period of the Judges the reign of Saul and a part of Davidrsquos This is a noteworthy fact Although David was a lover of instrumental music and himself a performer upon the harp it was not until some time after his reign had begun that this order of things was changed and as we shall see changed by divine command Let us hear the scriptural record (1 Chron 231-6) So when David was old and full of days he made Solomon his son king over Israel And he gathered together all the princes of Israel with the priests and the Levites Now the Levites were numbered by the age of thirty years and upward and their number by their polls man by man was fifty and eight thousand of which twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and six thousand were officers and judges moreover four thousand were porters and four thousand praised the Lord with the instruments which I made said David to praise therewith And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi namely Gershon Kohath and Merari Now how did David come to make this alteration in the Mosaic order which had been established by divine revelation For the answer let us again consult the sacred record (1 Chron 2811-13 19) Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch and of the houses thereof and of the treasuries thereof and of the inner parlors thereof and of the place of the mercy-seat and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord and of all the chambers round about of the treasuries of the house of God and of the treasuries of the dedicated things also for the courses of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord All this said David the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me and all the works of this pattern 2 Chron 2925 26 And he [Solomon] set the Levites in the house of the Lord

17

with cymbals with psalteries and with harps according to the commandment of David and of Gad the kingrsquos seer and of Nathan the prophet for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets

In the light of these statements of Godrsquos Word several things are made evident which challenge our serious attention First instrumental music never was divinely warranted as an element in the tabernacle-worship until David received inspired instructions to introduce it as preparatory to the transition which was about to be effected to the more elaborate ritual of the temple Secondly when the temple was to be built and its order of worship to be instituted David received a divine revelation in regard to it just as Moses had concerning the tabernacle with its ordinances Thirdly this direct revelation to David was enforced upon Solomon and upon the priests and Levites by inspired communications touching the same subject from the prophets Gad and Nathan Fourthly instrumental music would not have been constituted an element in the temple-worship had not God expressly authorized it by his command The public worship of the tabernacle up to the time when it was to be merged into the temple had been a stranger to it and so great an innovation could have been accomplished only by divine authority Godrsquos positive enactment grounded the propriety of the change

Is it not clear that the great principle that whatsoever is not commanded by God either expressly or impliedly in relation to the public worship of his house is forbidden meets here a conspicuous illustration The bearing of all this upon the Christian church is as striking as it is obvious If under a dispensation dominantly characterized by external appointments instrumental music could not be introduced into the worship of Godrsquos sanctuary except in consequence of a warrant furnished by him how can a church existing under the far simpler and more spiritual dispensation of the gospel venture without such a warrant to incorporate it into its public services and that no such warrant can be pleaded will be made apparent as the argument expands

2 Against the conclusiveness of this argument it is objected that the Israelites were accustomed to use instrumental music at their option and that especially was this the case on occasions of public rejoicing when thanksgivings were by masses of the people rendered to God for signal benefits conferred by his delivering providence So far as the allegation concerns the employment of that kind of music in private or social life it is irrelevant to the scope of an argument which has reference explicitly and solely to its use in the public worship of Godrsquos house This will rule out many of the instances which are cited to prove the untenableness of the principle contended for in this discussion

There remains however another class of cases to which attention may be fairly directed cases in which public worship appeared to be offered Into this class fall the instances of Miriamrsquos

18

playing upon the timbrel at the Red Sea the welcome of Saul and David by the women with singing dancing and instrumental music the like instance of Jephthahrsquos daughter the accompanying of the ark by David and Israel with bands of music and the minstrelsy of the prophets to whom Saul joined himself In reply to the objection based upon these instances the general ground may be taken that they are examples not of church-worship but of public rejoicing on the part of the nation or of communities with the exception of the prophetsrsquo minstrelsy which will be separately considered Some special remarks are however pertinent in regard to them

In the first place it will be noticed from the account of the triumphant rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea that the men sang only Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake saying etc What can be gathered from this simple singing of the males of Israel in praise of God for their great deliverance in favor of instrumental music in worship it is rather difficult to see

In the second place it was Miriam and the women who used instruments of music on the occasion And Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances The argument of the objector proves too much If from this instance the legitimacy of employing instrumental music in the public worship of the Jewish Church is to be inferred so may the legitimacy of its use by women in that worship But the history of the appointments of that worship furnishes no evidence of the tenableness of the latter inference The contrary is proved Women were excluded from any prominent at least any official function in the services of Godrsquos house in the Mosaic dispensation4 It was the males of Israel who were commanded to repair to Jerusalem on those festival occasions when bursts of instrumental music were united with the singing of praise in the temple-worship Indeed so far from the women taking an active part in that worship it would seem to have been limited as to its outward expression in sounds to the priests and Levites who as the divinely appointed official representatives of the congregation sang and played on instruments of music The argument might do for a modern advocate of womanrsquos rights but it will hardly answer for the Jewish dispensation It is as barren of results as was Miriam herself of issue

In the third place it again proves too much if the word rendered dances is correctly translated It would prove that religious dancing was an element in the prescribed worship of Godrsquos people The consequence refutes the argument

4 The daughters of Heman mentioned I Chron 255 were not singers and performers on instruments in the public worship for they are not included in the enumeration of the courses which follows

19

But to return to the general position that the instances mentioned in the objection were those not of ecclesiastical worship but of national rejoicing Against this general view it is urged in reply that an unwarrantable distinction is made between the Jewish church and the Jewish nation This raises the question whether such a distinction is valid Were state and church identical Did the members of the state act as members of the church Did the members of the church act as members of the state It may be admitted that in the mainmdashthat is with certain exceptions such as the proselytes of righteousness for examplemdashthe nation and the church were numerically coincident Ordinarilymdashthat is with certain exceptionsmdashthe rite of circumcision designated one alike a member of the state and of the church But that these two institutes were identical that the functions of the one were the functions of the other considered as organisms is to my mind not susceptible of proof It would be unsuitable here to enter at large into this question but it lies across the track of the argument in hand and a brief consideration of it as it is not illogically interjected will not be regarded as impertinent The question is acutely and ably discussed by that great man George Gillespie in his Aaronrsquos Rod Blossoming I shall give a mere outline the bare heads of a part of his argument to prove that the Jewish state and church although in the main the same materially that is as to personal constituents were organically and formally distinct institutes and I do this the more readily because Gillespiersquos valuable work is now rare and difficult of access They are distinct

(1) In respect of laws The judicial law was given to the state the ceremonial law to the church

(2) In respect of acts The members of the state did not as such worship God and offer sacrifices in the temple etc and the members of the church did not as such inflict physical punishments

(3) In respect of controversies to be decided Some concerned the Lordrsquos matters and were to be ecclesiastically settled some the kingrsquos matters and were to be civilly decided

(4) In respect of officers The priests and Levites were church officers magistrates and judges were state officers

(5) In respect of continuance The Romans took away the Jewish state and civil government but the Jewish church and ecclesiastical government remained

(6) In respect of variation The constitution and government of the Jewish state underwent serious changes under different civil administrations but we cannot say that the church was remodelled as often as the state was

20

(7) In respect of members There were proselytes the proselytes of righteousness who were admitted to membership in the church with its privileges but were not entitled to the privileges of members of the state

(8) In respect of government In the prosecution of this argument to prove the distinctness of the Jewish church and state Gillespie takes the ground that there were two Sanhedrims one civil the other ecclesiastical and he cites as maintaining that view Zepperus Junius Piscator Wolfius Gerhard Godwin Bucerus Walaeus Pelargus Sopingius the Dutch Annotators Bertramus Apollonius Strigelius the professors of Groningen Reynolds Paget LrsquoEmpereur and Elias cited by Buxtorf

[This special argument Gillespie presses elaborately and acutely by more than a dozen separate considerations derived from Scripture But as the question has been ably debated on both sides by men learned in Jewish affairs no positive opinion is here expressed as to the conclusiveness of the proofs presented by the great Scotch divine]

(9) There was an ecclesiastical excommunication among the Jews different from the penalties inflicted by the criminal law of the state

Such are the ribs merely of a powerful argument in favor of the distinction between the Jewish state and church by one who had the reputation of being one of the astutest debaters in the Westminster Assembly of Divines That distinguished scholar Dr Joseph Addison Alexander expresses the opinion in his Primitive Church Offices that the Jewish state and church were one organization with two distinct classes of functions one civil and another ecclesiastical But Gillespie shows that the numerical components of some of the courts were different they consisted of different men Take either view however and the ends of this argument are met more conclusively upon Gillespiersquos it is true but conclusively upon both What the state as such did the church as such did not do and vice versa And if this be so it follows that the same thing holds in regard to the people What they did in a national capacity they did not necessarily do in an ecclesiastical When then Miriam and the women with her the women who welcomed Saul and David returning home in triumph the daughter of Jephthah celebrating her fatherrsquos victory and the mass of people who accompanied the ark in its transportation to Jerusalem played on instruments of music they were commemorating national events with appropriate national rejoicings They were not acting worship as the church or as the members of the church

In regard to the company of prophets whom Saul joined it is sufficient to say that they were in part the poets and minstrels of the nation and that as the incident occurred during the existence of the tabernacle the incontestable proof which has been already exhibited that

21

instrumental music such as that which they employed was not allowed in its worship is enough to sweep all ground from beneath the objection now considered against the operation of the great principle of limitation upon church worship for which I have contended This holds good whether or not the view which has been presented as to these prophets be correct Their playing on instruments had nothing to do with the public formally instituted worship of the house of the Lord

It has thus been shown by a direct appeal to the Scriptures that during all the protracted period in which the tabernacle was Godrsquos sanctuary the great principle was enforced that only what God commands is permitted and what he does not command is forbidden in the public worship of his house Moses with all his wisdom the Judges with all their intrepidity Saul with all his waywardness and self-will David the sweet Psalmist of Israel with all his skill in the musical art did not any of them venture to violate that principle and introduce into the public services of Godrsquos house the devices of their imagination or the inventions of their taste The lesson is certainly impressive coming as it does from that distant age and it behooves those who live in a dispensation this side of the cross of Calvary and the day of Pentecost to show cause beyond a peradventure why they are discharged from the duty of obedience to the divine will in this vitally important matter

3 The next step in this argument is to show that no musical instruments were used in the synagogue-worship

As this is almost universally admitted no extended argument is needed to prove it It might have been expected from the jealousy which God had always peculiarly manifested in enforcing the principle that without an express warrant from him nothing was to be introduced into the public worship of his people and especially from the facts already emphasized that no instruments of music were allowed to be employed in the tabernacle and that they were included in the service at the temple only in consequence of explicit divine instructions to that effect it might have been expected that instrumental music would not have been incorporated into the worship of the Jews on ordinary Sabbath days not embraced in the three national festivals This presumption is confirmed by the facts of the case

The writers who have most carefully investigated Jewish antiquities and have written learnedly and elaborately in regard to the synagogue concur in showing that its worship was destitute of instrumental music What singing there was and there was not much of it in proportion to the other elements of worship was plain and simple In his great work On the Ancient Synagogue

22

Vitringa shows5 that there were only two instruments of sound used in connection with the synagogue and that these were employed not in worship or along with it as an accompaniment but as publishing signalsmdashfirst for proclaiming the new year secondly for announcing the beginning of the Sabbath thirdly for publishing the sentence of excommunication and fourthly for heralding fasts These were their sole uses There were no sacrifices over which they were to be blown as in the tabernacle and temple And from the nature of the instruments it is plain that they could not have accompanied the voice in singing They were only of two kindsmdashtrumpets (tubae) and ramsrsquo horns or cornets (buccinae) The former were straight the latter curved Nor is it to be supposed that the cornet like the modern instrument of that name was susceptible of modulation and therefore of accompanying vocal melody It had but one note and was so easy to be blown that a child could sound it Further they were for the most part used not even in connection with the synagogue buildings but were blown from the roofs of houses so as to be heard at a distance Enough has been said to prove that no instrumental music entered into the services of the Jewish synagogue6

The elements of worship in the Mosaic dispensation were of two kinds

(1) The generic or essential Those observed in the synagogue were the reading and exposition of Godrsquos Word exhortation prayers accompanied with singing if the common recitation by the people of parts of the Psalms can be so characterized and the contribution of alms Without here raising the question whether synagogues had an existence prior to the Babylonian exile one would risk little in taking the ground that during all the time of the churchrsquos development in the past Godrsquos people had been accustomed to meet on Sabbath days for engagement in these essential parts of divine worship The patriarchal dispensation being left out of account in which however every sentiment of piety and reverence the original institution of the seventh day as one of rest and the acquaintance of the Israelites with the law of the Sabbath before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law render it highly probable that such a practice was maintained a few reasons will be intimated in favor of its maintenance during the period of the Jewish economy

First The fourth commandment made the sacred observance of every Sabbath day obligatory It is not reasonable to suppose that the law contemplated the merely individual and private keeping holy of the day

5 De Synag Vetere Lib I Pars i Chap 10 Lightfoot on Matt vi 2 See also Josephus Ant Jud Lib iii Chap 12 6 The orthodox Jews even to the present day [1888] oppose its use in the synagogue The writer knew a congregation in Charleston SC to be rent in twain in consequence of an attempt to introduce an organ

23

Secondly The Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness were accustomed to worship every Sabbath day in mass at the tabernacle It was accessible from every part of the encampment which was around it on every side The proof of this is given in Lev 233 Six days Shall work be done but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest an holy convocation The prescriptive usage of meeting for worship on every Sabbath was thus established during their forty yearsrsquo pilgrimage in the desert In all that time during which they held weekly assemblies let it also be observed they knew nothing of instrumental music It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that this habit ingrained into them in the early period of their national existence and consecrated by innumerable sacred and splendid associations would have ceased to be influential after their wanderings had ceased and they had been permanently located in the land of rest Such an innovation upon their customs could only have occurred in consequence either of a divine command enforcing the change or of a serious defection from their religious principles We know that neither of these causes operated to produce the supposed revolution in their habits of worship Upon their settlement in Canaan they were of course dispersed in consequence of their tribal distribution throughout the length and breadth of the country from Dan to Beersheba and as the tabernacle was necessarily at any particular time confined to one spot it was not accessible to congregations representing all Israel except upon the occasions of the prescribed national festivals What then were they doing on all the other Sabbaths of the year in their cities and towns villages and rural neighborhoods It cannot be supposed that on those Sabbaths they never met for worship7 This consideration is mightily enhanced by the fact that only the males of Israel were enjoined to attend the great annual festivals Were the women the mothers of Israel the trainers of children and youth left destitute of all public worship The supposition cannot be entertained Provision must have been made for their engagement in the stated public worship of their God

Thirdly The priests and Levites when not occupied in the discharge of their formal official duties at the temple were distributed through the land and there is evidence to show that they acted as teachers of schools Is it likely that ministers of religion would have educated the people in everything but the divine law or that they would have failed to assemble them on Sabbath days for the reception of religious instruction or that such instruction would have been unattended by worship It may be said that this amounts to no more than a presumption But if so it is a powerful presumption and is strongly confirmed by other considerations such as those that follow

7 Under every preceding dispensation the sanctity of the Sabbath had been a fundamental part of the revealed religion the synagogue worship goes back possibly to the captivity in Egypt certainly to the captivity in BabylonmdashBreckinridgersquos Subjec Theology p 530

24

Fourthly The Israelites were commanded to proclaim the incoming of the Sabbaths and the new moons by the blowing of trumpets That these seasons were observed with the solemn worship of assemblies is rendered almost certain by the passage in 2 Kings chapter 4 in which it is intimated that on those occasions the prophets were accustomed to hold meetings for instruction and worship The Shunammite whose son had been restored to life by Elisha having lost the child by death proposed to her husband to provide her with the necessaries for a journey to the prophet at Mount Carmel His reply was Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day It is neither new moon nor Sabbath The answer cannot be understood except upon the supposition here contended formdashnamely that the Sabbaths and new moons were seasons of gathering for instruction and worship and it is certain that Carmel was not Jerusalem and that weekly Sabbaths and the beginnings of months did not occur only three times a year

Fifthly In Psalm 748 the Psalmist in view of the devastation of the country by its enemies thus laments They said in their hearts Let us destroy them together they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land It is not necessary to suppose that the buildings here rendered synagogues exactly corresponded with those erected for worship after the return from the Babylonish captivity but they were places for worship8 Possibly they were as Prideaux and others suggest uncovered places of worship proseuchae but they were buildings else how could they have been burned And that they were not the halls adjoining the temple as some conjecture is proved by the statement that they were throughout the land All the synagogues of God in the land Were the temple buildings ubiquitous In this exposition not a few eminent commentators agree Dr McCurdy in Langersquos Commentary on the place says that these buildings were places of meeting in different parts of the land Calvin remarks I readily take the Hebrew moadim in the sense of synagogues because he says all the sanctuaries and speaks expressly of the whole land Adam Clarke observes The word moadey which we translate synagogues may be taken in a more general sense and mean any places where religious assemblies were held and that such places and assemblies did exist long before the Babylonish captivity is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture9

Dr Plumptre in the article on synagogues in Smithrsquos Dictionary of the Bible citing Vitringa On the Synagogue (pp 271 ff) says Jewish writers have claimed for their synagogues a very remote antiquity In well-nigh every place where the phrase before the Lord appears they recognize in it a known sanctuary a fixed place of meeting and therefore a synagogue This

8 See Hornersquos Introduction vol ii p 102 for a confirmation of this view It is there shown to have been advocated by Josephus and Philo and also by Grotius Ernesti Whitby Doddridge and Lardner 9 George Gillespie says After the tribes were settled in the land of promise synagogues were built in the case of an urgent necessity because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place that God had chosen that his name might dwell there Eng Pop Cerem p 116

25

view is taken in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan On the one hand says Dr Plumptre it is probable that if new moons and Sabbaths were observed at all [it was shown above that they were] they must have been attended by some celebration apart from as well as at the tabernacle or the temple On the other so far as we find traces of such local worship it seems to have fallen too readily into a fetich religion sacrifices to ephods and teraphim in groves and on high places offering nothing but a contrast to the lsquoreasonable servicersquo the prayers psalms instruction in the law of the later synagogue This to some extent not universally is lamentably true but the abuse proves the legitimate use of these stated seasons and places of public worship separately from the tabernacle and temple services

The gatherings of the elders during the exile for instruction by the prophet which are repeatedly mentioned in Ezekiel infer that the practice of holding assemblies for worship and the hearing of the law antedated the captivity The exiles carried the custom with them The words in Ezek 1115 16 seem to imply that God manifested his gracious presence in these meetings of his people as in little sanctuaries somewhat as in former and better times he had done at the greater sanctuaries in their native land This view is supported remarks the learned author who has been quoted by the LXX the Vulgate and the Authorized Version It is confirmed by the general consensus of Jewish interpreters

If these arguments have availed to prove that the people of Israel were accustomed to hold stated meetings for worship apart from the services of the tabernacle and the temple the well-ascertained practice of the post-exilian synagogues clearly establishes the absence of instrumental music from those weekly assemblies For had that kind of music been employed in those meetings it would inevitably have been continued in the synagogue-worship Every conceivable consideration would have opposed its eliminationmdashthe powerful force of long-continued precedents the prescriptive usages of the past hallowed by sacred associations the conservative sentiment which resists a revolutionary innovation and more than all the demands of human taste and the requirements of an acknowledged artistic standard But it is certain that no instrumental music was used in the worship of the later synagogue The argument is well-nigh irresistible

If it be contended that instrumental music which had previously existed was purged out of the regular worship of the Jews by the post-exilian reformation the question at issue is given up For if the Jews reformed the worship of the church by abandoning instrumental music much more should it have been discarded at the greater reformation inaugurated by Christianity Otherwise it would be conceded that the Christian Church was less pure in its worship less thoroughly reformed than was the Jewish Church in its later and better state

26

It has thus been shown that the essential parts of divine worship were maintained by the people of God in their ordinary Sabbath-day worship during the Jewish dispensation and it is the purpose of this discussion as it shall be developed to evince the fact that only these essential elements of worship passed over into the Christian dispensation They are permanent and like the covenant of grace in its generic and essential features as contradistinguished to the specific and accidental were designed to endure unchanged through all dispensations

(2) The second kind of elements of worship in the Mosaic economy was the Specific or Accidental which was Typical and Symbolical and as such temporary in its nature10 Warburton says that types and symbols are generically the same in that they are both representations but they are specifically different in that the type represents something future the symbol something past or present Hence he regarded the sacraments of the New Testament as symbols Thornwell observes that they differ from each other in the circumstance that types teach by analogy and symbols by expressive signs Without pausing to discuss the nature of the specific differences between them or to consider the question whether some of the elements in the Jewish ritual service were not at the same time both typical and symbolical I proceed to show that the types of the temple-worship did not as is too often carelessly assumed have exclusive reference to the sacrifice of Christ but that some of them represented beforehand the effects to be produced in the New Testament dispensation by the Holy Ghost and I will then attempt further to show that the instrumental music of the temple-worship fell into the latter class and therefore as having fulfilled its typical and temporary office passed away and vanished upon the introduction of the Christian economy But before these points are developed it is requisite that a few things be premised

In the first place no element in the synagogue-worship was typical and temporary This is too evident to require argument The reading and exposition of the divine Word hortatory addresses the singing of psalms and the contribution of alms are elements of worship which cannot be regarded as types foreshadowing substantial realities to come They belong to the class essential and permanent

In the second place the essential and permanent elements of worship as fundamental to all public religious service entered of course into the temple-worship In this respect there was no difference between the worship of the temple and that of the synagogue

10 Let it be observed that in making this distinction between essential and accidental elements of worship by the accidental are meant elements divinely commanded With the Reformed and Puritan divines I utterly repudiate the distinction as used by Prelatists to justify such accidental elements as human wisdom or church authority adds without divine warrant to the essential elements of worship

27

In the third place whatever element of worship was absent from the synagogue and present in the temple was typical or symbolical in its character Having in common what was essential and permanent the specific difference between them lay in the possession by one of the accidental and temporary and the non-possession by the other of the same Now the only elements falling into this latter class were the typical and symbolical These were embraced in the service of the temple and excluded from that of the synagogue Consequently as instrumental music was not included in the worship of the synagogue but was in that of the temple it must be regarded as having been either typical or symbolical Symbolical it cannot be considered it must therefore have been typical If so the necessity is recognized of attempting in the progress of this discussion to show of what it was typical

In the fourth place some of the elements of the temple-service were directly and solely typical of Christ especially as a priest and as the atoning sacrifice to be offered for sin Others were typical only of the Holy Ghost and still others were typical at one and the same time both of Christ and the Holy Spirit To use thc technically accurate language of theology the impetration or acquisition of salvation is attributed to Christ the application of it to the Holy Spirit But the grace which applies the benefits secured by the work of Christ is closely related to the work by which they were acquired Indeed it is itself acquired by the merit and intercession of the Redeemer They therefore suppose and implicate each other Consequently some of the types have a double reference to both When they immediately represent the Holy Spirit they at the same time mediately represent Christ Some of the positions taken in these preliminary remarks may be justly regarded and carried along with the discussion as assumptions demanding no proof and others will be substantiated as the argument proceeds

First The offices and work of the Holy Spirit were as clearly and definitely predicted and promised in the Old Testament Scriptures as were those of Christ The truth is that they cannot possibly be disjoined Neither would be operative to salvation without the other The whole Old Testament revelation so far as it was evangelical bore a twofold reference to the blood and the water to the meritorious acquisition of salvation by the righteousness and atoning death of Christ and its efficacious application by the grace of the Holy Ghost In the conception of redemption which we find everywhere in the Bible justification and sanctification are never dissociated They are ever represented as the complementary and equally necessary factors of one whole and complete salvation This is the very genius of the gospel as well before as after the death of the Son of God As it was proclaimed to our first parents revealed to Abel Enoch and Noah and as the apostle expressly testifies preached before to Abraham it was essentially promissory in its nature The same promissory character was still more fully disclosed in the features of the Mosaic dispensation in the Psalms and Prophets and as I hope to show in the typical rites and ceremonies of the temple-service That the person and offices

28

of the Holy Spirit were distinctly known to believers under the old dispensation is proved by utterances in the Psalms a book which represents the experience of Godrsquos true people in every condition of their history In the 51st Psalm we have the prayers Take not thy Holy Spirit from me Uphold me with thy free Spirit and in the 143rd Thy Spirit is good lead me to the land of uprightness Isaiah (chap 6310) says They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit which words as they were spoken of the house of Israel suppose that they knew or ought to have known the Holy Spirit as their guide It may be added that the sacred historians of the Old Testament over and over again assert with reference to the heroic worthies of that dispensation that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them All this goes to show that the promises which related to the work of the Holy Spirit at a future period of the churchrsquos development were not unintelligible by those to whom they were delivered

Let us cite some of those declarations which point to the work of the Spirit in the new dispensation Isa 3215-17 After describing the desolation that would be visited upon the land of Israel the prophet says Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever Isa 421 Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Isa 443 4 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water courses Isa 5919 20 21 So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seedrsquos seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever This prophecy in regard to the Spirit resisting a flood of enemies is referred by the Rabbins to the coming of the Messiah Ezek 3625-27 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them Ezek 3713 14 And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves O my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live and I shall place you in your own land then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it saith the Lord Joel

29

228 29 And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit For the reference of this glorious promise to New Testament times we have the inspired testimony of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost when it was measurably but remarkably fulfilled In close connection with the promise that a fountain shall be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness Zechariah utters also the promise 1210 And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications It matters little whether or not with some we take the word spirit here to indicate a disposition That disposition can be produced only by the Holy Spirit The apostle Paul it deserves to be considered terms the Spirit that holy Spirit of promise Eph 113 and in Gal 313 14 he speaks very explicitly about this matter Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith How closely does he couple the atoning work of Christ and the applying work of the Spirit And how clearly does he enounce the fact that the Spirit as well as Christ was promised in the ancient Scriptures and the early revelations made to the people of God

Secondly The offices of the Holy Ghost together with their saving and joy-imparting effects were typified as well as the priestly work and expiatory death of Christ in the services which were peculiar to the temple In view of what has been shown concerning the clearness and fulness with which the work of the Spirit in New Testament times is announced in the prophetical writings we would be prepared to find this true upon an examination of the temple types nor will we be disappointed by such an investigation Those types as well as the prophecies proclaimed the gospel They powerfully preached the whole salvation of the gospelmdashthe blood and the water justification and sanctification How could it be otherwise As God intended by these typical elements to represent as by object-lessons the scheme of redemption to his ancient people who lived before its actual achievement is it reasonable to suppose that he would have furnished an imperfect and inadequate pre-figuration of its essential parts Would he have omitted all instruction beforehand in regard to the mode of its application It is difficult to conceive how any theologian can fail to see the obvious foreshadowing in the temple furniture and service of the grace and work of the ever-blessed Spirit I shall select for comment only those elements which appear with the greatest clearness to typify the offices of the Holy Spirit

The Washing with Water Why was water employed as a type if not to signify what the New Testament Scriptures so unmistakably characterize under that figure Except a man said the

30

Lord Jesus be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 35) The preposition here is omitted before the Spirit in the original and the words may well be rendered of water even the Spirit At least this must be the meaning in the judgment of any one who would not co-ordinate external water with the almighty grace of the Holy Ghost in the new creation of the soul And to talk of onersquos being spiritually born in part of an outward symbol is to speak unintelligibly Paul several times uses washing and water to signify cleansing by the Holy Spirit Eph 526 That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the washing of water by the word I Cor 611 And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Tit 35 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and [or even the] renewing of the Holy Ghost John emphasizes the issue of water and blood from the side of Jesus on the cross and declares This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth And there are three that bear witness in earth the Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one (John 2034 I John 56 8) The Spirit bears witness both to justification and sanctification It is he who sanctifies and he who bears witness with his own work in the soul The analogy then between the type and the anti-type as to the offices respectively discharged leads to the conclusion that the lavers and ablutions of the temple typified the grace of the Holy Spirit This view is far from being singular It has the support of the illustrious Lightfoot The end of it [the laver] was he says to wash the hands and feet of the priests but the most ultimate end was to signify the washing and purifying by the Spirit of grace which is so oft called water in the Scripture And so the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice and the washing in the water of the laver did read the two great divinity lectures of washing by the blood of Christ from guilt and by the grace of God from filthiness and pollution11 This witness is true and his learning and piety render it superfluous to cite the testimony of others to the same purpose

The Anointing Oil Is it not clear from Scripture that this typified the Holy Spirit Under the Old Testament economy priests prophets and kings were anointed Did the anointing oil of the temple signify that Christ would anoint himself or rather did it not prefigure his anointing by the Holy Ghost He is the Christ Godrsquos anointed One and the holy Unction was the Spirit of wisdom power and grace Acts 1038 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power This direct testimony is sufficient The anointing oil of the temple discharged the typical office of prefiguring the holy Unction with which Jesus was anointed and who coming from him upon all his people teacheth them all things (1 John 227) This view also is sustained by the authority of the distinguished scholar who has already been cited The

11 Works Vol ix p 419 London 1823 Fairbairn takes substantially the same view Typology of Scripture Vol ii pp 212 213 See also MrsquoEwen Types Bk iii sect 3

7

lamb Abelrsquos worship was accepted and Cainrsquos rejected And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect Thus in the immediate family of Adam we behold a signal and typical instance of self-assertion and disregard of divine prescriptions in the matter of worship This was swiftly followed by Godrsquos disapprobation and then came the development of sin in the atrocious crime of fratricide and the banishment of the murderer from the communion of his family and the presence of his God

(2) Lev 101-3 Nadab and Abihu And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer and put fire therein and put incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded them not1 And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord Then Moses said unto Aaron This is it that the Lord spake saying I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me and before all the people I will be glorified And Aaron held his peace These young men as the sons of Israelrsquos high priest were legitimately employed in discharging the appointed functions of the sacerdotal office But they presumed to add to Godrsquos commandments Exercising their own will in regard to the mode of his worship they did that which he did not command them and they were instantly killed for their wicked temerity

(3) Num 16 Korah Dathan and Abiram God had consecrated those descendants of Levi who sprang from Aaron to the priesthood while the remaining descendants of Levi were set apart to other offices pertaining to the service of the tabernacle Korah was a Levite but not a son of Aaron Dathan and Abiram were not even Levites but appear to have descended from Reuben When therefore these men asserting the claim that the whole congregation were entitled to rank with Moses and Aaron ventured to assume to themselves functions which God had restricted to a certain class they were overtaken by the swift indignation of Jehovah and perished in an awful manner The ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods They and all that appertained unto them went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the congregation

(4) Num 20 Moses smiting the rock at Kadesh When on a previous occasion the Israelites were suffering from thirst God commanded Moses to smite the rock at Horeb This he did and water gushed forth abundantly The apostle Paul tells us that that rock typified Christ The typical teaching furnished by Moses then was that from the one death of Christ under the smiting of the law the grace of the Holy Ghost should proceed to satisfy the thirst of the soul

1 That is which he did not command them

8

Christ was to be smitten unto death only once Now again at Kadesh the Israelites suffer for want of water God commands Moses to speak unto the rock To this explicit command he rashly ventured to add He spoke to the people instead of the rock and he smote the rock and smote it twice He used his own judgment asserted his own will and taught the people falsely For this sin he and Aaron who concurred with him in its commission were excluded from entrance into the promised land And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother and speak ye to the rock before their eyes and it shall give forth his water and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock and he said unto them Hear now ye rebels must we fetch you water out of this rock And Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and their beasts also And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them

We have here an inexpressibly affecting instance of the sin and folly of adding human inventions to the ordinances of Godrsquos appointment of the dreadful results that may follow from what men may conceive slight departures from obedience to the commands of God Not to speak of Aaron the accomplished orator the venerable saint the first anointed high priest of his people this incomparable man Moses in whom were blended all natural gifts and supernatural graces the deliverer the legislator the historian the poet the judge and the commander of Israel after having brought them out of Egypt conducted them through the parted waters of the Red Sea mediated between them and God amidst the terrors of Sinai led them through the horrors of the waste and howling desertmdashthis glorious man now in sight of the Jordan which like a thread separated them from the long-sought long-coveted goal of their hearts is doomed for one addition to Godrsquos command which no doubt seemed to him but a slight deviation from his instructions to die short of the promised land

(5) I Sam 13 Saul offering a burnt-offering at Gilgal The king had no command to officiate as priest Saul added to Godrsquos command and performed a function for which he had no authority The circumstances seemed to him to justify the act But he gained the divine disapprobation and lost his kingdom for the blunder As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling And he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had appointed but Samuel came not to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him And Saul said Bring hither a burnt-offering to me and peace-offerings And he offered the burnt-offering And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-

9

offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might salute him And Samuel said What hast thou done And Saul said Because I saw that the people were scattered from me and that thou camest not within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash therefore said I The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal and I have not made supplication unto the Lord I forced myself therefore and offered a burnt-offering And Samuel said to Saul Thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever But now thy kingdom shall not continue the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee

(6) I Chron 137 8 1511-15 Uzza and the ark and Davidrsquos subsequent obedience The Levites or more particularly the Kohathites were expressly commanded to bear the ark The manner of bearing it was also commanded Rings were appended through which staves were run These poles covered with gold were to be supported on the shoulders of the bearers They were forbidden to touch the ark upon pain of death After that the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it but they shall not touch any holy thing lest they die Such was Godrsquos command In transporting it from the house of Abinadab David infringed the divine command by directing the ark to be borne on a cart drawn by oxen Then when the animals stumbled Uzza with the intention of saving the ark from falling touched it with his hand He was instantly killed for his pious disobedience And they carried the ark of God in a new cart out of the house of Abinadab and Uzza and Ahio drave the cart And David and all Israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets And when they came unto the threshing-floor of Chidon Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark for the oxen stumbled And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzza and he smote him because he put his hand to the ark and there he died before God The offence was the more inexcusable because the staves were never detached from the ark and it is not at all likely that the Philistines who had been subjected to so severe a treatment while they had it in their possession had ventured to steal them And it deserves consideration that those heathen had not been killed for handling the ark while for doing the same thing Godrsquos people who should have known better were taught an awful lesson

The magnificent demonstration suffered a disastrous arrest and the king of Israel sobered by the warning he had received returned home to do what he ought to have done beforemdashto study the law of God Having accomplished this neglected office he makes a second attempt to remove the sacred symbol of Godrsquos covenant to Jerusalem but in a different fashion from the

10

former Let us hear the record And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests and for the Levites for Uriel Asaiah and Joel Shemaiah and Eliel and Amminadab and said unto them Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it For because ye did it not at the first the Lord our God made a breach upon us for that we sought him not after the due order So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel And the children of the Levites bare the ark upon their shoulders with the staves thereon as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord It merits notice that when the ark was to be removed and instated in its place in the temple which was about to be dedicated Solomon caused the due order to be observed And all the elders of Israel came and the Levites took up the ark And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the congregation and all the holy vessels that were in the tabernacle these did the priests and the Levites bring up And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place2 The history of this matter enforces the impressive lesson that we are not at liberty to use our own judgment and to act without a divine warrant in regard to things of Godrsquos appointment

(7) 2 Chron 2616-21 King Uzziah officiating as a priest God had given no warrant to a king to act as priest and Uzziah arrogantly undertook without such warrant to discharge sacerdotal functions The consequences of his impiety are vividly depicted in the following record But when he was strong his heart was lifted up to his destruction for he transgressed against the Lord his God and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense And Azariah the priest went in after him and with him fourscore priests of the Lord that were valiant men and they withstood Uzziah the king and said unto him It appertaineth not unto thee Uzziah to burn incense unto the Lord but to the priests the sons of Aaron that are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for thou hast trespassed neither shall it be for thine honor from the Lord God Then Uzziah was wroth and had a censer in his hand to burn incense and while he was wroth with the priests the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord from beside the incense altar And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked upon him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence yea himself hasted also to go out because the Lord had smitten him And Uzziah the king was a leper unto the day of his death and dwelt in a several house being a leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord

(8) 2 Chron 283-5 King Ahaz doubly offending as to function and place He performed priestly functions without a divine warrant and performed them in places which God had not appointed For this wicked self-assertion he was visited with divine vengeance Moreover he

2 2 Chron 5457

11

burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of them captives and brought them to Damascus And he was also delivered into the hands of the king of Israel who smote him with a great slaughter

(9) The jealousy of God for the principle of a divine warrant for everything in his worship is most conspicuously illustrated in New Testament times by the tremendous judgments which befell the Jewish people for perpetuating without such a warrant the typical ritual of the temple-service Until the great atoning sacrifice was offered they had a positive warrant from God for the observance of that order But when that sacrifice had been offered the veil of the temple had been rent in twain and the Holy Ghost had been copiously poured out at the inauguration of a new dispensation the positive warrant for the temple-worship was withdrawn This Stephen insisted on before the Council and the illustrious witness for Christ was murdered for his testimony He charged that when their fathers had no warrant to worship sacrificially except at the temple they had persisted in observing that worship elsewhere and now that God had withdrawn the warrant to worship at the temple they demanded the right to worship there Ye do always said the glorious servant of Jesus resist the Holy Ghost For this sin by which they endorsed their rejection of their Messiah and Saviour their church-state and national polity were demolished and they after the experience of an unparalleled tribulation were scattered to the four winds of heaven Have we not the evidence before us at this day

The mighty principle has thus been established by an appeal to the didactic statements of Godrsquos word and to special instances recorded in scriptural history that a divine warrant is required for everything in the faith and practice of the Church that whatsoever is not in the Scriptures commanded either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence is forbidden The special application of this principle to the worship of God as illustrated in the concrete examples which have been furnished cannot escape the least attentive observation God is seen manifesting a most vehement jealousy in protecting the purity of his worship Any attempt to assert the judgment the will the taste of man apart from the express warrant of his Word and to introduce into his worship human inventions devices and methods was overtaken by immediate retribution and rebuked by the thunderbolts of his wrath Nor need we wonder at this for the service which the creature professes to render to God reaches its highest and most formal expression in the worship which is offered him In this act the majesty of the Most High is directly confronted The worshipper presents himself face to face with the infinite Sovereign

12

of heaven and earth and assumes to lay at his feet the sincerest homage of the heart In the performance of such an act to violate divine appointments or transcend divine prescription to affirm the reason of a sinful creature against the wisdom the will of a sinful creature against the authority of God is deliberately to flaunt an insult in his face and to hurl an indignity against his throne What else could follow but the flash of divine indignation It is true that in the New Testament dispensation the same swift and visible arrest of this sin is not the ordinary rule But the patience and forbearance of God can constitute no justification of its commission Its punishment if it be not repented of is only deferred Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil while the delayed justice of God is gathering to itself indignation to burst forth like an overwhelming tempest in the dreadful day of wrath

The principle that has been emphasized is in direct opposition to that maintained by Romanists and Prelatists and I regret to say by lax Presbyterians that what is not forbidden in the Scriptures is permitted The Church of England in her twentieth article concedes to the church a power to decree rites and ceremonies with this limitation alone upon its exercise that it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to Godrsquos written word3 The principle of the discretionary power of the church in regard to things not commanded by Christ in his Word was the chief fountain from which flowed the gradually increasing tide of corruptions that swept the Latin church into apostasy from the gospel of Godrsquos grace And as surely as causes produce their appropriate effects and history repeats itself in obedience to that law any Protestant church which embodies that principle in its creed is destined sooner or later to experience a similar fate The same too may be affirmed of a church which formally rejects it and practically conforms to it The reason is plain The only bridle that checks the degenerating tendency of the churchmdasha tendency manifested in all agesmdashis the Word of God for the Spirit of grace Himself ordinarily operates only in connection with that Word If this

3 Some curious and remarkable statements have been made with reference to this article When in 1808 the question of the introduction of instrumental music into public worship was before the Presbytery of Glasgow the Rev Dr Begg father of the late Dr James Begg published a treatise on the Use of Organs in which the following statement is attributed to the Rev Alexander Hislop The Church of England has admitted into its articles this principle that it belongs to lsquothe churchrsquo of her own authority to lsquodecree rites and ceremoniesrsquo (Article 20 ) As a matter of historical fact this principle was never agreed to by the Convocation that adopted the Thirty-nine Articles this sentence being found neither in the first printed edition of the articles nor in the draft of them that passed the Convocation and which is still in existence with the autograph signatures of the members but it is believed to have been surreptitiously inserted by the hand of Queen Elizabeth herself who had much of the over-bearing spirit of her father Henry VIII and who as head of the church which the English constitution made her was determined to have a pompous worship under her ecclesiastical control In support of this statement reference is made to authorities in Presbyterian Review July 1843 The Use of Organs etc by James Begg DD (p 150) See also Bannermanrsquos Church of Christ Vol I p 339

13

restraint be discarded the downward lapse is sure The words of the great theologian John Owenmdashand the British Isles have produced no greatermdashare solemn and deserve to be seriously pondered The principle that the church hath power to institute any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God either as to matter or manner beyond the observance of such circumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself hath instituted lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry of all the confusion blood persecution and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world

In view of such considerations as these confirmed as they are by the facts of all past history it is easy to see how irrelevant and baseless is the taunt flung by high churchmen ritualists and latitudinarians of every stripe against the maintainers of the opposite principle that they are narrow-minded bigots who take delight in insisting upon trivial details The truth is exactly the other way The principle upon which this cheap ridicule is cast is simple broad majestic It affirms only the things that God has commanded the institutions and ordinances that he has prescribed and besides this discharges only a negative office which sweeps away every trifling invention of manrsquos meretricious fancy It is not the supporters of this principle but their opponents who delight in insisting upon crossings genuflexions and bowings to the east upon vestments altars and candles upon organs and cornets and the dear antiphonies that so bewitch their prelates and their chapters with the goodly echo they make in fine upon all that finical trumpery which inherited from the woman clothed in scarlet marks the trend backward to the Rubicon and the seven-hilled mart of souls

But whatever others may think or do Presbyterians cannot forsake this principle without the guilt of defection from their own venerable standards and from the testimonies sealed by the blood of their fathers Among the principles that the Reformers extracted from the rubbish of corruption and held up to light again none were more comprehensive far-reaching and profoundly reforming than this It struck at the root of every false doctrine and practice and demanded the restoration of the true Germany has been infinitely the worse because of Lutherrsquos failure to apply it to the full Calvin enforced it more fully The great French Protestant Church with the exception of retaining a liturgical relic of popery gave it a grand application and France suffered an irreparable loss when she dragooned almost out of existence the body that maintained it John Knox stamped it upon the heart of the Scottish Church and it constituted the glory of the English Puritans Alas that it is pasting into decadence in the Presbyterian churches of England Scotland and America What remains but that those who still see it and cling to it as to something dearer than life itself should continue to utter however feebly however inoperatively their unchanging testimony to its truth It is the acropolis of the churchrsquos liberties the palladium of her purity That gone nothing will be left to hope but to strain its gaze towards the dawn of the millennial day Thenmdashwe are entitled to expectmdasha

14

more thorough-going and glorious reformation will be effected than any that has blessed the church and the world since the magnificent propagation of Christianity by the labors of the inspired apostles themselves

15

II

ARGUMENT FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

In the Jewish dispensation God was pleased to proceed in accordance with the great principle which has been signalized in regard to the introduction of instrumental music into the public worship of his people He kept the ordering of this part of his formal and instituted worship in his own hands There is positive proof that it was never made an element of that worship except by his express command Without his warrant it was excluded only with it was it employed

1 Let us notice the operation of this principle with reference to the tabernacle-worship

Moses received the mode of constructing the tabernacle and the order of its worship by divine revelation See saith he that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount It will be admitted that the instructions thus divinely given descended to the most minute detailsmdashthe sort of fabrics and skins to be used and their diverse colors the pins the ouches and the taches the ablutions the vestments and the actions of the officiating priests and Levites the ingredients of the holy ointment and the incense the parts the arrangements the instruments of worshipmdashto everything connected with the tabernacle these specific directions referred Of course if God had intended instrumental music to be employed it would have been included in these particular directions the instruments would have been specified for its performance and regulations enjoined for its use

What now are the facts No directions are given respecting instruments of music Two instruments of sound are provided for but they were of such a character as to make it impracticable to use them ordinarily as accompaniments of the voice in singing The record is And the Lord spake unto Moses saying Make thee two trumpets of silver of a whole piece shalt thou make them that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly and for the journeying of the camps And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you thou shalt blow an alarm with the trumpets and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies Also in the days of your gladness and in your solemn days and in the beginnings of your months ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings that they may be to you for a memorial before your God I am the Lord your God The blowing of these trumpets as a signal for marching or for going to war had certainly nothing to do with worship neither did the call of the congregation to assemble belong to the performance of worship any more than

16

a church bell now the ringing of which ceases when the services begin There is nothing to show that the blowing of the trumpets on festival days and at the beginning of months over the offerings was accompanied by singing on the part of priests and Levites There is no mention of that fact and Jewish tradition opposes the supposition Moreover it is almost certain that the blowing of trumpets on such occasions was a representative act performed by the priests and that consequently it was not accompanied by the singing of the congregation It is true that there is one recorded exception (2 Chron 512 13) which occurred however when the tabernacle had given way to the temple At the dedication of the latter edifice the priests blew the trumpets at the same time that the Levites sang and played upon instruments of music so as to make one sound but it is evident that on that great occasion of rejoicing what was aimed at was not musical harmony but a powerful crash of jubilant sound We are shut up to the conclusion that there was nothing in the tabernacle-worship as ordered by Moses which could be justly characterized as instrumental music

This absence of instrumental music from the services of the tabernacle continued not only during the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert but after their entrance into the promised land throughout the protracted period of the Judges the reign of Saul and a part of Davidrsquos This is a noteworthy fact Although David was a lover of instrumental music and himself a performer upon the harp it was not until some time after his reign had begun that this order of things was changed and as we shall see changed by divine command Let us hear the scriptural record (1 Chron 231-6) So when David was old and full of days he made Solomon his son king over Israel And he gathered together all the princes of Israel with the priests and the Levites Now the Levites were numbered by the age of thirty years and upward and their number by their polls man by man was fifty and eight thousand of which twenty and four thousand were to set forward the work of the house of the Lord and six thousand were officers and judges moreover four thousand were porters and four thousand praised the Lord with the instruments which I made said David to praise therewith And David divided them into courses among the sons of Levi namely Gershon Kohath and Merari Now how did David come to make this alteration in the Mosaic order which had been established by divine revelation For the answer let us again consult the sacred record (1 Chron 2811-13 19) Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch and of the houses thereof and of the treasuries thereof and of the inner parlors thereof and of the place of the mercy-seat and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit of the courts of the house of the Lord and of all the chambers round about of the treasuries of the house of God and of the treasuries of the dedicated things also for the courses of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord and for all the vessels of service in the house of the Lord All this said David the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me and all the works of this pattern 2 Chron 2925 26 And he [Solomon] set the Levites in the house of the Lord

17

with cymbals with psalteries and with harps according to the commandment of David and of Gad the kingrsquos seer and of Nathan the prophet for so was the commandment of the Lord by his prophets

In the light of these statements of Godrsquos Word several things are made evident which challenge our serious attention First instrumental music never was divinely warranted as an element in the tabernacle-worship until David received inspired instructions to introduce it as preparatory to the transition which was about to be effected to the more elaborate ritual of the temple Secondly when the temple was to be built and its order of worship to be instituted David received a divine revelation in regard to it just as Moses had concerning the tabernacle with its ordinances Thirdly this direct revelation to David was enforced upon Solomon and upon the priests and Levites by inspired communications touching the same subject from the prophets Gad and Nathan Fourthly instrumental music would not have been constituted an element in the temple-worship had not God expressly authorized it by his command The public worship of the tabernacle up to the time when it was to be merged into the temple had been a stranger to it and so great an innovation could have been accomplished only by divine authority Godrsquos positive enactment grounded the propriety of the change

Is it not clear that the great principle that whatsoever is not commanded by God either expressly or impliedly in relation to the public worship of his house is forbidden meets here a conspicuous illustration The bearing of all this upon the Christian church is as striking as it is obvious If under a dispensation dominantly characterized by external appointments instrumental music could not be introduced into the worship of Godrsquos sanctuary except in consequence of a warrant furnished by him how can a church existing under the far simpler and more spiritual dispensation of the gospel venture without such a warrant to incorporate it into its public services and that no such warrant can be pleaded will be made apparent as the argument expands

2 Against the conclusiveness of this argument it is objected that the Israelites were accustomed to use instrumental music at their option and that especially was this the case on occasions of public rejoicing when thanksgivings were by masses of the people rendered to God for signal benefits conferred by his delivering providence So far as the allegation concerns the employment of that kind of music in private or social life it is irrelevant to the scope of an argument which has reference explicitly and solely to its use in the public worship of Godrsquos house This will rule out many of the instances which are cited to prove the untenableness of the principle contended for in this discussion

There remains however another class of cases to which attention may be fairly directed cases in which public worship appeared to be offered Into this class fall the instances of Miriamrsquos

18

playing upon the timbrel at the Red Sea the welcome of Saul and David by the women with singing dancing and instrumental music the like instance of Jephthahrsquos daughter the accompanying of the ark by David and Israel with bands of music and the minstrelsy of the prophets to whom Saul joined himself In reply to the objection based upon these instances the general ground may be taken that they are examples not of church-worship but of public rejoicing on the part of the nation or of communities with the exception of the prophetsrsquo minstrelsy which will be separately considered Some special remarks are however pertinent in regard to them

In the first place it will be noticed from the account of the triumphant rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea that the men sang only Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake saying etc What can be gathered from this simple singing of the males of Israel in praise of God for their great deliverance in favor of instrumental music in worship it is rather difficult to see

In the second place it was Miriam and the women who used instruments of music on the occasion And Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances The argument of the objector proves too much If from this instance the legitimacy of employing instrumental music in the public worship of the Jewish Church is to be inferred so may the legitimacy of its use by women in that worship But the history of the appointments of that worship furnishes no evidence of the tenableness of the latter inference The contrary is proved Women were excluded from any prominent at least any official function in the services of Godrsquos house in the Mosaic dispensation4 It was the males of Israel who were commanded to repair to Jerusalem on those festival occasions when bursts of instrumental music were united with the singing of praise in the temple-worship Indeed so far from the women taking an active part in that worship it would seem to have been limited as to its outward expression in sounds to the priests and Levites who as the divinely appointed official representatives of the congregation sang and played on instruments of music The argument might do for a modern advocate of womanrsquos rights but it will hardly answer for the Jewish dispensation It is as barren of results as was Miriam herself of issue

In the third place it again proves too much if the word rendered dances is correctly translated It would prove that religious dancing was an element in the prescribed worship of Godrsquos people The consequence refutes the argument

4 The daughters of Heman mentioned I Chron 255 were not singers and performers on instruments in the public worship for they are not included in the enumeration of the courses which follows

19

But to return to the general position that the instances mentioned in the objection were those not of ecclesiastical worship but of national rejoicing Against this general view it is urged in reply that an unwarrantable distinction is made between the Jewish church and the Jewish nation This raises the question whether such a distinction is valid Were state and church identical Did the members of the state act as members of the church Did the members of the church act as members of the state It may be admitted that in the mainmdashthat is with certain exceptions such as the proselytes of righteousness for examplemdashthe nation and the church were numerically coincident Ordinarilymdashthat is with certain exceptionsmdashthe rite of circumcision designated one alike a member of the state and of the church But that these two institutes were identical that the functions of the one were the functions of the other considered as organisms is to my mind not susceptible of proof It would be unsuitable here to enter at large into this question but it lies across the track of the argument in hand and a brief consideration of it as it is not illogically interjected will not be regarded as impertinent The question is acutely and ably discussed by that great man George Gillespie in his Aaronrsquos Rod Blossoming I shall give a mere outline the bare heads of a part of his argument to prove that the Jewish state and church although in the main the same materially that is as to personal constituents were organically and formally distinct institutes and I do this the more readily because Gillespiersquos valuable work is now rare and difficult of access They are distinct

(1) In respect of laws The judicial law was given to the state the ceremonial law to the church

(2) In respect of acts The members of the state did not as such worship God and offer sacrifices in the temple etc and the members of the church did not as such inflict physical punishments

(3) In respect of controversies to be decided Some concerned the Lordrsquos matters and were to be ecclesiastically settled some the kingrsquos matters and were to be civilly decided

(4) In respect of officers The priests and Levites were church officers magistrates and judges were state officers

(5) In respect of continuance The Romans took away the Jewish state and civil government but the Jewish church and ecclesiastical government remained

(6) In respect of variation The constitution and government of the Jewish state underwent serious changes under different civil administrations but we cannot say that the church was remodelled as often as the state was

20

(7) In respect of members There were proselytes the proselytes of righteousness who were admitted to membership in the church with its privileges but were not entitled to the privileges of members of the state

(8) In respect of government In the prosecution of this argument to prove the distinctness of the Jewish church and state Gillespie takes the ground that there were two Sanhedrims one civil the other ecclesiastical and he cites as maintaining that view Zepperus Junius Piscator Wolfius Gerhard Godwin Bucerus Walaeus Pelargus Sopingius the Dutch Annotators Bertramus Apollonius Strigelius the professors of Groningen Reynolds Paget LrsquoEmpereur and Elias cited by Buxtorf

[This special argument Gillespie presses elaborately and acutely by more than a dozen separate considerations derived from Scripture But as the question has been ably debated on both sides by men learned in Jewish affairs no positive opinion is here expressed as to the conclusiveness of the proofs presented by the great Scotch divine]

(9) There was an ecclesiastical excommunication among the Jews different from the penalties inflicted by the criminal law of the state

Such are the ribs merely of a powerful argument in favor of the distinction between the Jewish state and church by one who had the reputation of being one of the astutest debaters in the Westminster Assembly of Divines That distinguished scholar Dr Joseph Addison Alexander expresses the opinion in his Primitive Church Offices that the Jewish state and church were one organization with two distinct classes of functions one civil and another ecclesiastical But Gillespie shows that the numerical components of some of the courts were different they consisted of different men Take either view however and the ends of this argument are met more conclusively upon Gillespiersquos it is true but conclusively upon both What the state as such did the church as such did not do and vice versa And if this be so it follows that the same thing holds in regard to the people What they did in a national capacity they did not necessarily do in an ecclesiastical When then Miriam and the women with her the women who welcomed Saul and David returning home in triumph the daughter of Jephthah celebrating her fatherrsquos victory and the mass of people who accompanied the ark in its transportation to Jerusalem played on instruments of music they were commemorating national events with appropriate national rejoicings They were not acting worship as the church or as the members of the church

In regard to the company of prophets whom Saul joined it is sufficient to say that they were in part the poets and minstrels of the nation and that as the incident occurred during the existence of the tabernacle the incontestable proof which has been already exhibited that

21

instrumental music such as that which they employed was not allowed in its worship is enough to sweep all ground from beneath the objection now considered against the operation of the great principle of limitation upon church worship for which I have contended This holds good whether or not the view which has been presented as to these prophets be correct Their playing on instruments had nothing to do with the public formally instituted worship of the house of the Lord

It has thus been shown by a direct appeal to the Scriptures that during all the protracted period in which the tabernacle was Godrsquos sanctuary the great principle was enforced that only what God commands is permitted and what he does not command is forbidden in the public worship of his house Moses with all his wisdom the Judges with all their intrepidity Saul with all his waywardness and self-will David the sweet Psalmist of Israel with all his skill in the musical art did not any of them venture to violate that principle and introduce into the public services of Godrsquos house the devices of their imagination or the inventions of their taste The lesson is certainly impressive coming as it does from that distant age and it behooves those who live in a dispensation this side of the cross of Calvary and the day of Pentecost to show cause beyond a peradventure why they are discharged from the duty of obedience to the divine will in this vitally important matter

3 The next step in this argument is to show that no musical instruments were used in the synagogue-worship

As this is almost universally admitted no extended argument is needed to prove it It might have been expected from the jealousy which God had always peculiarly manifested in enforcing the principle that without an express warrant from him nothing was to be introduced into the public worship of his people and especially from the facts already emphasized that no instruments of music were allowed to be employed in the tabernacle and that they were included in the service at the temple only in consequence of explicit divine instructions to that effect it might have been expected that instrumental music would not have been incorporated into the worship of the Jews on ordinary Sabbath days not embraced in the three national festivals This presumption is confirmed by the facts of the case

The writers who have most carefully investigated Jewish antiquities and have written learnedly and elaborately in regard to the synagogue concur in showing that its worship was destitute of instrumental music What singing there was and there was not much of it in proportion to the other elements of worship was plain and simple In his great work On the Ancient Synagogue

22

Vitringa shows5 that there were only two instruments of sound used in connection with the synagogue and that these were employed not in worship or along with it as an accompaniment but as publishing signalsmdashfirst for proclaiming the new year secondly for announcing the beginning of the Sabbath thirdly for publishing the sentence of excommunication and fourthly for heralding fasts These were their sole uses There were no sacrifices over which they were to be blown as in the tabernacle and temple And from the nature of the instruments it is plain that they could not have accompanied the voice in singing They were only of two kindsmdashtrumpets (tubae) and ramsrsquo horns or cornets (buccinae) The former were straight the latter curved Nor is it to be supposed that the cornet like the modern instrument of that name was susceptible of modulation and therefore of accompanying vocal melody It had but one note and was so easy to be blown that a child could sound it Further they were for the most part used not even in connection with the synagogue buildings but were blown from the roofs of houses so as to be heard at a distance Enough has been said to prove that no instrumental music entered into the services of the Jewish synagogue6

The elements of worship in the Mosaic dispensation were of two kinds

(1) The generic or essential Those observed in the synagogue were the reading and exposition of Godrsquos Word exhortation prayers accompanied with singing if the common recitation by the people of parts of the Psalms can be so characterized and the contribution of alms Without here raising the question whether synagogues had an existence prior to the Babylonian exile one would risk little in taking the ground that during all the time of the churchrsquos development in the past Godrsquos people had been accustomed to meet on Sabbath days for engagement in these essential parts of divine worship The patriarchal dispensation being left out of account in which however every sentiment of piety and reverence the original institution of the seventh day as one of rest and the acquaintance of the Israelites with the law of the Sabbath before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law render it highly probable that such a practice was maintained a few reasons will be intimated in favor of its maintenance during the period of the Jewish economy

First The fourth commandment made the sacred observance of every Sabbath day obligatory It is not reasonable to suppose that the law contemplated the merely individual and private keeping holy of the day

5 De Synag Vetere Lib I Pars i Chap 10 Lightfoot on Matt vi 2 See also Josephus Ant Jud Lib iii Chap 12 6 The orthodox Jews even to the present day [1888] oppose its use in the synagogue The writer knew a congregation in Charleston SC to be rent in twain in consequence of an attempt to introduce an organ

23

Secondly The Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness were accustomed to worship every Sabbath day in mass at the tabernacle It was accessible from every part of the encampment which was around it on every side The proof of this is given in Lev 233 Six days Shall work be done but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest an holy convocation The prescriptive usage of meeting for worship on every Sabbath was thus established during their forty yearsrsquo pilgrimage in the desert In all that time during which they held weekly assemblies let it also be observed they knew nothing of instrumental music It is altogether unreasonable to suppose that this habit ingrained into them in the early period of their national existence and consecrated by innumerable sacred and splendid associations would have ceased to be influential after their wanderings had ceased and they had been permanently located in the land of rest Such an innovation upon their customs could only have occurred in consequence either of a divine command enforcing the change or of a serious defection from their religious principles We know that neither of these causes operated to produce the supposed revolution in their habits of worship Upon their settlement in Canaan they were of course dispersed in consequence of their tribal distribution throughout the length and breadth of the country from Dan to Beersheba and as the tabernacle was necessarily at any particular time confined to one spot it was not accessible to congregations representing all Israel except upon the occasions of the prescribed national festivals What then were they doing on all the other Sabbaths of the year in their cities and towns villages and rural neighborhoods It cannot be supposed that on those Sabbaths they never met for worship7 This consideration is mightily enhanced by the fact that only the males of Israel were enjoined to attend the great annual festivals Were the women the mothers of Israel the trainers of children and youth left destitute of all public worship The supposition cannot be entertained Provision must have been made for their engagement in the stated public worship of their God

Thirdly The priests and Levites when not occupied in the discharge of their formal official duties at the temple were distributed through the land and there is evidence to show that they acted as teachers of schools Is it likely that ministers of religion would have educated the people in everything but the divine law or that they would have failed to assemble them on Sabbath days for the reception of religious instruction or that such instruction would have been unattended by worship It may be said that this amounts to no more than a presumption But if so it is a powerful presumption and is strongly confirmed by other considerations such as those that follow

7 Under every preceding dispensation the sanctity of the Sabbath had been a fundamental part of the revealed religion the synagogue worship goes back possibly to the captivity in Egypt certainly to the captivity in BabylonmdashBreckinridgersquos Subjec Theology p 530

24

Fourthly The Israelites were commanded to proclaim the incoming of the Sabbaths and the new moons by the blowing of trumpets That these seasons were observed with the solemn worship of assemblies is rendered almost certain by the passage in 2 Kings chapter 4 in which it is intimated that on those occasions the prophets were accustomed to hold meetings for instruction and worship The Shunammite whose son had been restored to life by Elisha having lost the child by death proposed to her husband to provide her with the necessaries for a journey to the prophet at Mount Carmel His reply was Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day It is neither new moon nor Sabbath The answer cannot be understood except upon the supposition here contended formdashnamely that the Sabbaths and new moons were seasons of gathering for instruction and worship and it is certain that Carmel was not Jerusalem and that weekly Sabbaths and the beginnings of months did not occur only three times a year

Fifthly In Psalm 748 the Psalmist in view of the devastation of the country by its enemies thus laments They said in their hearts Let us destroy them together they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land It is not necessary to suppose that the buildings here rendered synagogues exactly corresponded with those erected for worship after the return from the Babylonish captivity but they were places for worship8 Possibly they were as Prideaux and others suggest uncovered places of worship proseuchae but they were buildings else how could they have been burned And that they were not the halls adjoining the temple as some conjecture is proved by the statement that they were throughout the land All the synagogues of God in the land Were the temple buildings ubiquitous In this exposition not a few eminent commentators agree Dr McCurdy in Langersquos Commentary on the place says that these buildings were places of meeting in different parts of the land Calvin remarks I readily take the Hebrew moadim in the sense of synagogues because he says all the sanctuaries and speaks expressly of the whole land Adam Clarke observes The word moadey which we translate synagogues may be taken in a more general sense and mean any places where religious assemblies were held and that such places and assemblies did exist long before the Babylonish captivity is pretty evident from different parts of Scripture9

Dr Plumptre in the article on synagogues in Smithrsquos Dictionary of the Bible citing Vitringa On the Synagogue (pp 271 ff) says Jewish writers have claimed for their synagogues a very remote antiquity In well-nigh every place where the phrase before the Lord appears they recognize in it a known sanctuary a fixed place of meeting and therefore a synagogue This

8 See Hornersquos Introduction vol ii p 102 for a confirmation of this view It is there shown to have been advocated by Josephus and Philo and also by Grotius Ernesti Whitby Doddridge and Lardner 9 George Gillespie says After the tribes were settled in the land of promise synagogues were built in the case of an urgent necessity because all Israel could not come every Sabbath day to the reading and expounding of the law in the place that God had chosen that his name might dwell there Eng Pop Cerem p 116

25

view is taken in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan On the one hand says Dr Plumptre it is probable that if new moons and Sabbaths were observed at all [it was shown above that they were] they must have been attended by some celebration apart from as well as at the tabernacle or the temple On the other so far as we find traces of such local worship it seems to have fallen too readily into a fetich religion sacrifices to ephods and teraphim in groves and on high places offering nothing but a contrast to the lsquoreasonable servicersquo the prayers psalms instruction in the law of the later synagogue This to some extent not universally is lamentably true but the abuse proves the legitimate use of these stated seasons and places of public worship separately from the tabernacle and temple services

The gatherings of the elders during the exile for instruction by the prophet which are repeatedly mentioned in Ezekiel infer that the practice of holding assemblies for worship and the hearing of the law antedated the captivity The exiles carried the custom with them The words in Ezek 1115 16 seem to imply that God manifested his gracious presence in these meetings of his people as in little sanctuaries somewhat as in former and better times he had done at the greater sanctuaries in their native land This view is supported remarks the learned author who has been quoted by the LXX the Vulgate and the Authorized Version It is confirmed by the general consensus of Jewish interpreters

If these arguments have availed to prove that the people of Israel were accustomed to hold stated meetings for worship apart from the services of the tabernacle and the temple the well-ascertained practice of the post-exilian synagogues clearly establishes the absence of instrumental music from those weekly assemblies For had that kind of music been employed in those meetings it would inevitably have been continued in the synagogue-worship Every conceivable consideration would have opposed its eliminationmdashthe powerful force of long-continued precedents the prescriptive usages of the past hallowed by sacred associations the conservative sentiment which resists a revolutionary innovation and more than all the demands of human taste and the requirements of an acknowledged artistic standard But it is certain that no instrumental music was used in the worship of the later synagogue The argument is well-nigh irresistible

If it be contended that instrumental music which had previously existed was purged out of the regular worship of the Jews by the post-exilian reformation the question at issue is given up For if the Jews reformed the worship of the church by abandoning instrumental music much more should it have been discarded at the greater reformation inaugurated by Christianity Otherwise it would be conceded that the Christian Church was less pure in its worship less thoroughly reformed than was the Jewish Church in its later and better state

26

It has thus been shown that the essential parts of divine worship were maintained by the people of God in their ordinary Sabbath-day worship during the Jewish dispensation and it is the purpose of this discussion as it shall be developed to evince the fact that only these essential elements of worship passed over into the Christian dispensation They are permanent and like the covenant of grace in its generic and essential features as contradistinguished to the specific and accidental were designed to endure unchanged through all dispensations

(2) The second kind of elements of worship in the Mosaic economy was the Specific or Accidental which was Typical and Symbolical and as such temporary in its nature10 Warburton says that types and symbols are generically the same in that they are both representations but they are specifically different in that the type represents something future the symbol something past or present Hence he regarded the sacraments of the New Testament as symbols Thornwell observes that they differ from each other in the circumstance that types teach by analogy and symbols by expressive signs Without pausing to discuss the nature of the specific differences between them or to consider the question whether some of the elements in the Jewish ritual service were not at the same time both typical and symbolical I proceed to show that the types of the temple-worship did not as is too often carelessly assumed have exclusive reference to the sacrifice of Christ but that some of them represented beforehand the effects to be produced in the New Testament dispensation by the Holy Ghost and I will then attempt further to show that the instrumental music of the temple-worship fell into the latter class and therefore as having fulfilled its typical and temporary office passed away and vanished upon the introduction of the Christian economy But before these points are developed it is requisite that a few things be premised

In the first place no element in the synagogue-worship was typical and temporary This is too evident to require argument The reading and exposition of the divine Word hortatory addresses the singing of psalms and the contribution of alms are elements of worship which cannot be regarded as types foreshadowing substantial realities to come They belong to the class essential and permanent

In the second place the essential and permanent elements of worship as fundamental to all public religious service entered of course into the temple-worship In this respect there was no difference between the worship of the temple and that of the synagogue

10 Let it be observed that in making this distinction between essential and accidental elements of worship by the accidental are meant elements divinely commanded With the Reformed and Puritan divines I utterly repudiate the distinction as used by Prelatists to justify such accidental elements as human wisdom or church authority adds without divine warrant to the essential elements of worship

27

In the third place whatever element of worship was absent from the synagogue and present in the temple was typical or symbolical in its character Having in common what was essential and permanent the specific difference between them lay in the possession by one of the accidental and temporary and the non-possession by the other of the same Now the only elements falling into this latter class were the typical and symbolical These were embraced in the service of the temple and excluded from that of the synagogue Consequently as instrumental music was not included in the worship of the synagogue but was in that of the temple it must be regarded as having been either typical or symbolical Symbolical it cannot be considered it must therefore have been typical If so the necessity is recognized of attempting in the progress of this discussion to show of what it was typical

In the fourth place some of the elements of the temple-service were directly and solely typical of Christ especially as a priest and as the atoning sacrifice to be offered for sin Others were typical only of the Holy Ghost and still others were typical at one and the same time both of Christ and the Holy Spirit To use thc technically accurate language of theology the impetration or acquisition of salvation is attributed to Christ the application of it to the Holy Spirit But the grace which applies the benefits secured by the work of Christ is closely related to the work by which they were acquired Indeed it is itself acquired by the merit and intercession of the Redeemer They therefore suppose and implicate each other Consequently some of the types have a double reference to both When they immediately represent the Holy Spirit they at the same time mediately represent Christ Some of the positions taken in these preliminary remarks may be justly regarded and carried along with the discussion as assumptions demanding no proof and others will be substantiated as the argument proceeds

First The offices and work of the Holy Spirit were as clearly and definitely predicted and promised in the Old Testament Scriptures as were those of Christ The truth is that they cannot possibly be disjoined Neither would be operative to salvation without the other The whole Old Testament revelation so far as it was evangelical bore a twofold reference to the blood and the water to the meritorious acquisition of salvation by the righteousness and atoning death of Christ and its efficacious application by the grace of the Holy Ghost In the conception of redemption which we find everywhere in the Bible justification and sanctification are never dissociated They are ever represented as the complementary and equally necessary factors of one whole and complete salvation This is the very genius of the gospel as well before as after the death of the Son of God As it was proclaimed to our first parents revealed to Abel Enoch and Noah and as the apostle expressly testifies preached before to Abraham it was essentially promissory in its nature The same promissory character was still more fully disclosed in the features of the Mosaic dispensation in the Psalms and Prophets and as I hope to show in the typical rites and ceremonies of the temple-service That the person and offices

28

of the Holy Spirit were distinctly known to believers under the old dispensation is proved by utterances in the Psalms a book which represents the experience of Godrsquos true people in every condition of their history In the 51st Psalm we have the prayers Take not thy Holy Spirit from me Uphold me with thy free Spirit and in the 143rd Thy Spirit is good lead me to the land of uprightness Isaiah (chap 6310) says They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit which words as they were spoken of the house of Israel suppose that they knew or ought to have known the Holy Spirit as their guide It may be added that the sacred historians of the Old Testament over and over again assert with reference to the heroic worthies of that dispensation that the Spirit of the Lord came upon them All this goes to show that the promises which related to the work of the Holy Spirit at a future period of the churchrsquos development were not unintelligible by those to whom they were delivered

Let us cite some of those declarations which point to the work of the Spirit in the new dispensation Isa 3215-17 After describing the desolation that would be visited upon the land of Israel the prophet says Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be counted for a forest Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and righteousness remain in the fruitful field And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever Isa 421 Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my Spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles Isa 443 4 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring and they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water courses Isa 5919 20 21 So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob saith the Lord As for me this is my covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seedrsquos seed saith the Lord from henceforth and forever This prophecy in regard to the Spirit resisting a flood of enemies is referred by the Rabbins to the coming of the Messiah Ezek 3625-27 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them Ezek 3713 14 And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves O my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my Spirit in you and ye shall live and I shall place you in your own land then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it saith the Lord Joel

29

228 29 And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit For the reference of this glorious promise to New Testament times we have the inspired testimony of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost when it was measurably but remarkably fulfilled In close connection with the promise that a fountain shall be opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness Zechariah utters also the promise 1210 And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications It matters little whether or not with some we take the word spirit here to indicate a disposition That disposition can be produced only by the Holy Spirit The apostle Paul it deserves to be considered terms the Spirit that holy Spirit of promise Eph 113 and in Gal 313 14 he speaks very explicitly about this matter Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us for it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith How closely does he couple the atoning work of Christ and the applying work of the Spirit And how clearly does he enounce the fact that the Spirit as well as Christ was promised in the ancient Scriptures and the early revelations made to the people of God

Secondly The offices of the Holy Ghost together with their saving and joy-imparting effects were typified as well as the priestly work and expiatory death of Christ in the services which were peculiar to the temple In view of what has been shown concerning the clearness and fulness with which the work of the Spirit in New Testament times is announced in the prophetical writings we would be prepared to find this true upon an examination of the temple types nor will we be disappointed by such an investigation Those types as well as the prophecies proclaimed the gospel They powerfully preached the whole salvation of the gospelmdashthe blood and the water justification and sanctification How could it be otherwise As God intended by these typical elements to represent as by object-lessons the scheme of redemption to his ancient people who lived before its actual achievement is it reasonable to suppose that he would have furnished an imperfect and inadequate pre-figuration of its essential parts Would he have omitted all instruction beforehand in regard to the mode of its application It is difficult to conceive how any theologian can fail to see the obvious foreshadowing in the temple furniture and service of the grace and work of the ever-blessed Spirit I shall select for comment only those elements which appear with the greatest clearness to typify the offices of the Holy Spirit

The Washing with Water Why was water employed as a type if not to signify what the New Testament Scriptures so unmistakably characterize under that figure Except a man said the

30

Lord Jesus be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 35) The preposition here is omitted before the Spirit in the original and the words may well be rendered of water even the Spirit At least this must be the meaning in the judgment of any one who would not co-ordinate external water with the almighty grace of the Holy Ghost in the new creation of the soul And to talk of onersquos being spiritually born in part of an outward symbol is to speak unintelligibly Paul several times uses washing and water to signify cleansing by the Holy Spirit Eph 526 That he might sanctify and cleanse it [the church] with the washing of water by the word I Cor 611 And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God Tit 35 According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and [or even the] renewing of the Holy Ghost John emphasizes the issue of water and blood from the side of Jesus on the cross and declares This is he that came by water and blood even Jesus Christ not by water only but by water and blood And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth And there are three that bear witness in earth the Spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one (John 2034 I John 56 8) The Spirit bears witness both to justification and sanctification It is he who sanctifies and he who bears witness with his own work in the soul The analogy then between the type and the anti-type as to the offices respectively discharged leads to the conclusion that the lavers and ablutions of the temple typified the grace of the Holy Spirit This view is far from being singular It has the support of the illustrious Lightfoot The end of it [the laver] was he says to wash the hands and feet of the priests but the most ultimate end was to signify the washing and purifying by the Spirit of grace which is so oft called water in the Scripture And so the sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice and the washing in the water of the laver did read the two great divinity lectures of washing by the blood of Christ from guilt and by the grace of God from filthiness and pollution11 This witness is true and his learning and piety render it superfluous to cite the testimony of others to the same purpose

The Anointing Oil Is it not clear from Scripture that this typified the Holy Spirit Under the Old Testament economy priests prophets and kings were anointed Did the anointing oil of the temple signify that Christ would anoint himself or rather did it not prefigure his anointing by the Holy Ghost He is the Christ Godrsquos anointed One and the holy Unction was the Spirit of wisdom power and grace Acts 1038 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power This direct testimony is sufficient The anointing oil of the temple discharged the typical office of prefiguring the holy Unction with which Jesus was anointed and who coming from him upon all his people teacheth them all things (1 John 227) This view also is sustained by the authority of the distinguished scholar who has already been cited The

11 Works Vol ix p 419 London 1823 Fairbairn takes substantially the same view Typology of Scripture Vol ii pp 212 213 See also MrsquoEwen Types Bk iii sect 3